2: And Darkness Was Upon the Face of the School

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. If you see it in here, let me know...it's that small, twisted thing with a few holes in it.

Please see the WARNING! at the beginning of the Prologue. Your nose, your electronics, and your coworkers will thank you.

Chapter 2: And Darkness Was Upon the Face of the School

Monday morning found assorted seventh year students uncharacteristically waiting outside a dungeon classroom. Usually Professor Snape left the room open for the dunderheads. His grand entrances would be interrupted if he had to wade through them to get to the door.

Ron took the opportunity to strike up a conversation with Hannah. He should have picked the icy dungeon climate as a topic.

"I'd like to know what sorry prat forced us to come down to the dungeons for another class with Snape," he complained. "What is it we're supposed to be doing here, again?"

Ron was interrupted by a distinctive high-pitched giggle. Malfoy really ought to have been embarrassed to still laugh like a second year girl at his age. "Merlin's arse, Weasley...it's a safe bet you never so much as glanced at the book!" Draco seemed to find this incredibly amusing.

"Some of us are busy over the weekends, Malfoy," Ron retorted superiorly, putting his arm around Hannah's waist for emphasis. She blushed becomingly.

Hermione was, herself, a bit miffed with Ron regarding his sadly typical academic laxity; but she shot a halfhearted glare at Malfoy from force of habit. It seemed bad form to let his odd snide remark slide altogether. Though she had to admit, he'd not said anything genuinely nasty since having summoned unusual reserves of intestinal fortitude to help them take out Voldemort. It was almost enough to make her feel good about blocking the Slicing Hex that would have certainly emptied the little blond prat's jugular.

He returned the expression, though it was more of an amused sneer than a proper glare. Summoning appreciable contempt for Granger these days took more effort than he cared to exert, considering she'd saved his arse (with a minimum of bitching about it, no less). "Don't tell me you can't appreciate the irony of a Weasley being unaware we're about to discuss reproduction," he challenged, still snickering slightly.

Well, put that way, it was rather funny. But truce or not, Hermione didn't feel any compelling need to laugh at Malfoy's jokes. Fortunately, Ron saved her the trouble by finally catching on to the topic.

"You mean, we're going to have to hear Snape talk about...you know..."

"The word you're groping for is 'sex', Mr. Weasley," Professor Snape intoned dryly, and immediately regretted his choice of words. Granted, the laughter was directed at the boy who was looking increasingly festive as his face turned as green as his hair was red, but it still seemed a bad omen.

"Silence!" he hissed, taking out his frustrations on the door. Students shuffled in behind him like so many dejected cygnets trailing after a cranky black swan.

The winter chill in the dungeons was highly conducive to resuming an appropriately icy demeanor. Snape found the walk up to the podium wonderfully restorative for his sense of detached superiority. "For those of you who did not spend the weekend leering at the diagrams in your texts, you will find the chapter on the male reproductive system begins on page eight," he said boredly. There, he'd managed to insult both the dunderheads who hadn't read the book and the irritating little swots who had. "We will start with the external portion of the system. The penis is the reproductive organ in human males, and also serves as the external organ of urination...and if you were unaware of that before now, it's a wonder you manage to get dressed in the morning."

True, that last bit wasn't in the book. But saying it was ever so satisfying.

This seemed sufficient to keep the students' mouths shut. Indeed, some of them looked as if they were fighting a gag reflex. Had he known inducing nausea was such a worry free means of keeping a class quiet, he'd have figured out a way to secretly administer mild Vomiting Draughts years ago.

It was enough to lull Snape back into his usual teaching mode, asking pointed questions of the inattentive and reveling in their stuttered responses. Miss Abbot, who'd actually dared giggle when he began to describe the scrotum, was summarily obliged to read aloud about the epididymis. This was a relief to Snape, as there was no way to make that word sound dignified.

And if Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Weasley thought they were getting away with their exchange of rude gestures, so be it; they would discover otherwise, much to their sorrow, when he called on them to read aloud the purpose of the corpus cavernosa and the corpus spongiosum. Especially when they realized that the animated diagrams of the internal and external male genitalia obligingly attained a state of erection as the words describing the process were recited...

Snape was obliged to ask, "Are there any questions?" at the end of the first bit of nonsense. He expected the question would prove rhetorical, so he moved briskly along to female anatomy.

"The external female genitalia are known collectively as the vulva. Do not use this term interchangeably with 'vagina.' It would be akin to saying a door is the same thing as a hallway, and only serve to make you appear even more of a dunderhead than you are. We will start with the Labia, Latin for 'lips,' of which there are two sets. Since you find this so amusing, Mr. Boot, I am certain you would derive great pleasure from reading about the vulva for our benefit. You may stop when you reach the clitoris."

Not if he's hoping for another date, the female population of the class thought. Miss Bulstrode had the poor judgment to think it aloud, however, and so earned a place in history as the first Slytherin from whom Snape had ever taken five points...as well as the honor of reading about the organ in question.

Things were going smoothly until they reached the vagina...at which point an all-too-familiar hand flew into the air. Snape reflected that if there was one human being on earth he could instantly recognize from the palm and fingers alone, it was Miss Granger. I'm going to regret this, he thought. "Yes, Miss Granger?" he acknowledged her as quellingly as possible

"Sir, the textbook describes the hymen as a membrane stretching across the vaginal opening. But it isn't shown in the diagram. There's no explanation of how menstrual blood issues from the vagina in women who haven't yet had intercourse, so..."

"Miss Granger, the female reproductive cycle, including menstruation, will be covered tomorrow. This class addresses anatomy only," Professor Snape said in a dangerously quiet tone of voice. And discusses it in far more detail than anyone not a Healer would ever want or need to know, he thought sourly.

"Sir, I am talking about anatomy. I'm wondering why our Reproductive Health text does not adequately describe the variations in this part of the vulva. The biology texts I've read medical procedures to perforate it to allow menstrual flow are rare, implying it isn't normally a solid organ. It comes in an annular form, which implies a hole in the middle..."

"I am familiar with Latin, Miss Granger," he grit out from between his teeth.

"Yes, sir. It can still be present after intercourse, or even after childbirth, though this is rare. So what exactly is it?"

Snape's plans for this subject included the vain hope that he might miraculously be able to offload all the information within three days rather than the allotted four, leaving him with a lovely block of free time on Friday when he would otherwise be supervising their exam on the subject. Now it was looking as if he might well spend the rest of the class period getting past the hymen.

"Miss Granger, for the purposes of comprehending the female anatomy, suffice to say that something is there, it can be damaged, and that is that! Now, we are moving on to the internal genitalia." He proceeded through the vagina to the cervix and beyond, at this point only thinking that this needed to be finished as quickly as possible. They'd be seeing these diagrams again the next day, during the discussion on the reproductive cycle and birth.

"Are there any questions?"

Every head in the room whipped toward Hermione, looking at her either as if she were mad, or as if they were inclined to Petrify her lest that arm go up again and seal all their fates. With a sigh, she clamped her mouth over any further attempts at discussion.

"Five points from Gryffindor for unseemly breathing," Snape said to Miss Granger, glowering. "Class dismissed."

If the Staff Room had a clock on its wall indicating the overall mood of the professors, the hands would be at approximately 'half-past disgruntled.'

"Ungh. One day down, four to go," Sprout said with a sigh.

"Problems, Pomona?"

"No, Filius, they were actually fairly tame. I'm just looking backward to Wednesday. That's when they actually have to hear about intercourse, you know."

"Ah, yes, there is that. Charlie, dear fellow, I don't suppose you'd care to risk whatever the alleged penalties are and consider trading?"

"Not on your life. I managed to get myself into enough trouble explaining the diagrams," he said mournfully. The younger boys had proved painfully obtuse with regards to the anatomical drawings. He'd been obliged to point out the penis on a Crup to set them in the right direction, and the Crup had indicated its displeasure at being used as a visual aid by peeing on him and the boys standing nearest. Female anatomy had been a completely lost cause.

"You seem unperturbed, Clara," Flitwick asked Professor Quill, hoping she could add some encouraging words to the discussion.

Severus took a break from rubbing his temples to interrupt. "Yes, well, I have it on good authority that she was pointing out the various runes and hieroglyphs that are phallic or yonic, throughout the lesson."

S. Clara smiled at a particularly choice Linear B tablet she had acquired as she answered. "I didn't skip any of the material, Severus. Mine isn't exactly the most popular subject in the curriculum. It's not often I get a chance to advertise it like this."

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering if all Ravenclaws were annoyingly adept at optimism, or just Flitwick and Quill.

Filius noticed the gesture and asked sympathetically, "Headache, Severus?"

"No thank you, Filius, I already have one."

The resulting laugh set the clock back to merely disgruntled. Snape managed a smirk. He may not be an optimist, but all was not lost so long as his wits were intact.

"Have your lot already started asking awkward questions, then?"

"Not the lot, but one is enough," he said grimly. "Miss Granger seems insufferably fixated on proving the nature of the hymen or some such. Perhaps she's trying to make a name for herself by rewriting the textbook."

McGonagall briskly pulled out her Teacher's Manual and glanced at it. "Well, at least we're done with Mr. Willy here until Wednesday, when the topic of intercourse...arises," she said, her lips twitching with mischief.

After a few seconds of staring to confirm that the speaker was, indeed, Minerva McGonagall, the assembled professors erupted in mirth.

"Ye gods, Minerva...you didn't just call that diagram M...Mr...." Sprout gave up, laughing too hard to finish.

"You need to quit eavesdropping on third years," Professor Foote advised, trying to catch his breath.

"Well, I couldn't abide all the long faces in here a moment longer. Fare-thee-weel 'till Wednesday, Willy me lad!" she comically addressed the drawing before slamming the book shut roughly.

Immediately, almost half the room stopped laughing and looked nervous. The male half, to be exact.

"What's gotten into the gentlemen hereabouts this fine day? I swear all the lads in my class were looking like that through almost the entire lesson. Mr. Longbottom was even cringing."

Filius decided he was nominated to break the news to her. "Well, Minerva, if you were batting the anatomical diagrams about during your lecture as you were just now, I can see why the young gentlemen might have been...discomfited."

The rest of wizards in the room nodded with awful solemnity.

Minerva waited for the laughing to resume, since this was surely another joke. When none was forthcoming, her incredulity spilled over into her voice. "Let me be sure I understand this. Slapping a drawing of a penis constitutes a traumatic experience for a roomful of almost-grown men, some of whom have actually fought in a war for Merlin's sake? And even mature wizards, having seen more of life...and death, for that matter...have the same reaction?"

"You make that sound so... so unreasonable," Professor Foote complained.

"It's just not right to treat a man's bits like that, Minerva," Charlie said uncomfortably.

"We're talking about a drawing, Charlie m'lad," she retorted, still rather baffled.

"That is quite beside the point," Severus said significantly. The witches all patiently waited for him to elaborate. The wizards all nodded at the sagacity of that eloquent utterance.

McGonagall's face was a study in blankness. "Well, I'm sorry, gentlemen. No...discomfort...was intended."

"Quite all right, Minerva," Filius replied in a forgiving tone. "Do try to be more careful about such things in the future." He excused himself from the room with his usual cheery aplomb once again intact, and the rest of the men straggled out after him, looking righteously indignant. It was high time for a drink at 'Flitwick's Pub'...to settle the nerves.

Total silence reigned for about four minutes after they exited. Then the staff room exploded in witchly cackling.

"How did you manage to apologize with a straight face?" Sprout gasped, tears rolling down her cheeks. Minerva simply shook her head, unable to find the breath to respond.

"Wizards are such babies," she finally whispered. "What a shame Rolanda and Aurora missed that."

"Absolutely. And men have the nerve to think we'd want to be like them! I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would envy that," Pomona added, dragging out the drawing (now permanently christened 'Mr. Willy') and pointing to it derisively.

"Indeed," Quill remarked sagely. "Historically speaking, in most cultures outdoor plumbing has been regarded as synonymous with barbarism."

The screeches of feminine laughter were nearly deafening.

Even Vector, relieved at having stammered through her first class without any awkward questions being asked, managed to sketch a smile.

"You don't understand, Harry..."

"No, Ron, you don't understand. There is no way you can compare hearing Snape say 'vagina' with McGonagall whacking her pointer at a moving illustration of a penis until it just goes limp."

"It's 'flaccid,' Harry," Hermione corrected.

"After that display, it sure is," Neville muttered in dismay. He hoped the trauma would wear off soon.

"And that was the other half of the torture," Ron complained, shooting Hermione an evil look. "Couldn't leave well enough alone, could you, Hermione? The bastard would've been just as happy to humiliate us for half an hour, then let go. But no, you had to egg him on. Actually asking questions!"

Before Hermione could fire back, Ginny bounced into the conversation. "Too bad you didn't have Hooch. She's an absolute riot! I don't think we stopped laughing the entire class, and she would have loved to have had more students ask questions. Of course, as it was, we just ran out of time, and..." She trailed off in the face of a ring of hostile stares. Ginny felt her popularity suddenly drop about twenty points. Even Harry favored her with a pained expression.

There may not have been much she could do about everyone else's reaction to her good fortune, but she knew what would put Harry back on track. She sauntered up to her man and whispered in his ear. "I'm sorry, lover. Could I make it up to you by helping you review today's lessons?"

So few words, so much to improve his frame of mind. "Actually, you could, my pet. You wouldn't happen to remember what the opposite of 'flaccid' is, would you?" he asked slyly.

Ron stalked off in a fine snit. "If you two are going to talk dirty, either bloody well learn to whisper properly or use 'Muffliato!'" he shot back over his shoulder.

"I'm with Ron on that one," Neville averred. Harry and Ginny shrugged and left to find some privacy.

Hermione retreated to her room in a huff, leaving Neville with Padma Patil, who was in the Gryffindor common room under the pretext of visiting her sister. "I didn't realize that Professor McGonagall was making all you chaps so uncomfortable," she said apologetically.

Neville blushed a little, but managed to respond. "Well, I don't think she was doing it deliberately. Gods, I hope she wasn't doing it deliberately."

Padma couldn't help asking, teasingly, "Was she enough to make you want to trade with Ron?"

Neville's face twisted in an expression of anguish. "Why don't you give me a choice between the grooming Doxys and swimming with Grindylows?" he asked, and they both laughed.

"Well, at least Ron's was just 'half an hour and let go,'" she said.

"If that's his approach to the subject, I pity Hannah," Neville remarked. He did his best not to look away as he said it, but he couldn't quite control the blushing. He hoped that it was a reasonably tasteful first attempt at sexual innuendo.

Apparently Padma thought so because she managed another giggle and a very fetching blush. "I was wondering... Parvati isn't about, and I really wanted someone to help me revise for my Herbology N.E.W.T. Do you have some time?" she asked.

"Oh, sure!" Neville piped up cheerfully. They spent a very comfortable hour going over the care and feeding of mobile plant life.

It wasn't until much later that Neville remembered, to his happy amazement, that Padma couldn't have been planning to study Herbology with Parvati. Only the Ravenclaw Patil twin was seeking a N.E.W.T. in the subject.

Professor Flitwick went into the second day of Reproductive Health classes in an amiable mood. This was typical for him, but he suspected he'd have to work on maintaining it, in the face of today's subject matter.

Yesterday had been fairly easy. He could deal with the giggling. But menstruation had to be mentioned today, however briefly, on the way to conception and birth. The chorus of sotto voce 'Eeews' and horrified faces had him worried that these boys would revert back to the 'girls have cooties' stage of development. Perhaps if they had a vague idea of the basic processes, he could skip some of the details?

"Do you children have any idea where little wizards and witches come from?" he asked in a plaintive squeak. He was rather hoping to avoid going through the entire section on the female reproductive cycle. Although if the lads did manage to grasp the importance of observing the ebb and flow of women's, their lives would be infinitely easier. It had certainly served him well.

"Um... St. Mungo's?" one particularly gawky Gryffindor suggested, nervously.

With remarks like that, Filius wasn't holding out a great deal of hope for their survival in the female tidal environment. Sighing heavily, he carefully guided them through the outline of what happens when the sperm cells they discussed yesterday became acquainted with an ovum. It was fortunate third years weren't obliged to hear the mechanics of intercourse in anything more than the most rudimentary fashion...he'd have to do a reverse Cheering Charm to keep them from wetting their pants from hilarity.

The giggling diminished as he proceeded to fetal development and birth, and he felt a distinct sense of relief when the hypothetical little witch or wizard they were discussing was finally born.

There, Filius thought, managing to surreptitiously banish a bead of sweat that threatened to slide down his brow without the class noticing. I've done my duty. The little dears know where babies come from now...

All of a sudden, one particularly sensitive Hufflepuff broke out in a sob. "Do you mean that all that happened to my Mum when she had me?"

All the other boys, in the nature of boys everywhere, looked distinctly uncomfortable at one of their number crying. It wasn't as if they could laugh at him, or slap him on the back and tell him to suck it in, under the circumstances. After all, he was upset on behalf of his Mum, and that was sacred ground.

As Professor Flitwick did his best to reassure the boy, he decided this must be a nightmare. Unfortunately, his schedule said he would be having it all over again tomorrow, with another group of impressionable children.

Snape had rather wasted his dramatic account of the agonies of labor, considering his primary target proved unperturbed. She even had the nerve to primly point out several references on pain management in labor and delivery. However, not everyone was similarly unaffected. As the description of the birthing process ground on in graphic detail, Ronald Weasley's face grew white enough to make his freckles look like drops of blood. From the Slytherin corner of the classroom, there was a muffled sob. Draco, unable to grow any paler, had turned grayish.

The good professor had to be content with most of the class staggering out as if quite unwell, and several couples appearing to be on the outs as a result of losing their rose-colored lenses regarding babies.

As Harry headed down to the dungeons to meet Ron and Hermione, he reflected that Professor McGonagall had been much more restrained when discussing childbirth. Perhaps the week would turn out to be fairly uneventful after all.

"Ronald, it's OVER! I don't want a big family, and you aren't getting within ten feet of me, ever again!" Hannah hurried away, leaving a stunned Ron standing in the middle of the corridor.

"What in the world was all that about?" Harry asked as he rounded the corner into the middle of that dramatic scene.

"Based on the measurements she's using, I'd say it means she wasn't paying very close attention to the segment on male anatomy," Luna supplied thoughtfully, startling the life out of Hermione, who hadn't noticed the Ravenclaw's arrival. Sometimes she swore the girl was part ghost.

When Luna's remark sunk in, Harry laughed until his legs wouldn't support him.

Once Ron caught on, he decided that it was really rather difficult to beat Luna when it came to sheer entertainment value, and he invited her up to the Gryffindor common room for a game of wizard chess (to help take his mind off the whole public dumping incident).

Luna cheerfully assented. After all, she had been listening to the pain management portion of Professor Vector's birth lecture (quite carefully, as most of it was almost whispered), and really did fancy having a large family.

Of course, she knew better than to mention that to Ron immediately. After all, she was crazy...not stupid.

Snape had NOT wanted to come to the Staff Room for the review of today's debacle. But it was only because he felt disinclined to answer any questions. Never in his wildest dreams had he anticipated being attacked...by Flitwick, of all people.

"YOU!" the little professor yelled in an unusually forceful voice. "What kind of a sadist are you?"

Snape was, at least, not alone in being stymied into inarticulateness by the overwhelming incongruity of it all. Had anyone suggested this was his day to be accosted by a righteously apoplectic Flitwick, he would have told them to stop nipping at Sybil's sherry.

"Filius," he finally managed, in an awed sort of shock, "what in the name of Merlin's lopsided bollocks are you talking about?"

"I made a third year cry today," Flitwick said, still staring down the larger man with a ferocity that made it impossible to laugh at the absurd discrepancy in the degree of intimidation inherent in their respective appearances. "I had no intention of doing so. The poor little fellow couldn't take hearing what his mum had gone through delivering him. I felt like the lowest form of life on earth for doing it. And you, you...cruel, vicious, sadistic bastard...you make helpless little first years cry on a regular basis! ON PURPOSE!"

Hearing Filius Flitwick call anyone, much less a colleague, 'bastard' was quite enough to leave one utterly wrong-footed. Indeed, it was enough to make one disbelieve the existence of one's own feet because it left very little in the way of reality to stand upon.

Snape was still officially gobsmacked, but Minerva was unwilling to find out what it would take to send him into livid territory.

"That's ENOUGH!" she shouted, planting herself between the two wizards.

Flitwick blinked and shook his head. "Oh dear... I'm sorry, Severus. I don't know what came over me. I know you're not...any of those awful things." He couldn't bring himself to repeat any of it without the impetus of a bad temper and guilty conscience.

"It's all right, Filius," Severus managed, still taken aback. "I'm afraid I don't have the same knack with the young ones as you do."

"Well, you do have to worry about preventing the little dears blowing themselves up; I imagine it's rather nerve-wracking for everyone involved."

Minerva rubbed her head and sighed. "This would never have happened if not for this--this Sex Ed boot camp that's been forced on us. We need to get our priorities sorted, and now! For Merlin's sake, we're turning against each other out of frustration! It's not our fault we're stuck teaching this marathon course in Setting Teeth on Edge. We need to take out our aggressions on the real culprits!"

"The students?" Severus quipped darkly, earning an admonishing glare from Flitwick. It was still too soon to find that funny.

"Albus?" Aurora offered. She still couldn't help but think he should have raised a bigger fuss...at least enough get the thing postponed and reorganized.

"The Ministry?" Poppy hazarded to guess.

"Close," Minerva answered grimly. "The Ministry, the Board of Governors, and whichever lazy-arsed parents decided that they were going to shirk their responsibilities in teaching their children about the facts of life!"

"Hear, hear!" Foote cheered, gladly seconded by Vector.

"I move we hang in until the end of the week, then foist all weekend rounds off on Cuthbert, Remus, Sybill, and Albus. They can draft Irma and Argus if they have to because we're not going to be about! We're getting ourselves into Hogsmeade and getting seriously pissed!"

"Hear, hear!" more unanimously this time.

"Then, we track down the Board of Governors or infiltrate the Ministry or do whatever it takes to find out who instigated these foul classes!"

"Absolutely! Hear, hear! Minerva, Minerva!"

"And when we do, we find a way to make him, her, or them suffer as much as we have this week!"

William Wallace could have only wished to elicit that much enthusiastic support from a crowd.

Meanwhile, Albus was puzzling over the sorting spell and wondering at the reasons for it. Granted, the professors would unquestionably have bickered and balked even more had they the option of trading assignments, but why did it matter which students were sorted into their classes, so long as the times worked out? Some truly advanced Arithmancy seemed to have been incorporated into the spell; even Professor Vector, proficient as she was in her subject, might have been a good several weeks at sorting out all the variables that went into its construction. He would have asked her to look at it, but the poor girl had enough trouble this week as it was.

All things considered, he really should have opted for a less considerate approach.

Author's Notes:

Phallic: In the form of or resembling the penis. (Adjective derived from 'phallus,' the Greek word for penis.)

Yonic: In the form of or resembling the vulva. An adjective derived from the Sanskrit word yoni. Its most basic meaning is 'vulva,' though it has multiple connotations (the actual organ, symbolic depictions thereof, etc.)

Minerva's drill sergeant approach to Sex Ed (which is best appreciated by viewing others' reaction to it!) is a perhaps not so affectionate homage to a nun-who-shall-not-be-named. The woman looked like she could have stormed Iwo Jima singlehanded (and was likely old enough to have done so.) She probably didn't know how to blush. She slammed right through the extremely thorough Sex Ed curriculum during my final year of High School without batting an eye, and I was very impressed with her thoroughness. The males in the classroom were also affected, but I wouldn't use the word 'impressed.'