Double Dog Dare! -- Special Episode 21
Jan Dark, 1 April 2002

There was a turmoil of activity in the doorway as Dumbledore and Snape paused to take in the situation. The twins were excitedly blasting firework spells into the air, which ricocheted wildly off the ceiling and seemed to bounce off everything in the room before fizzling out in the hearth. "Stop that!" said Dumbledore peremptorily. "I was about to say 'Hold it right there!' but you two seem to have the situation under control."

Janet-as-Viviane turned towards the group in the doorway. Her eyes glittered. She sashayed towards Snape, leaned into him and whispered menacingly but sexily into his ear.

"I don't understand why you don't despise me, you know, 'cause I can do anything I want and instead, I choose to pout and whine and feel the burden of Order Of The Phoenixness? I mean, I could be rich, I could be famous, I could have anything. Anyone. Even you, Snape. I could ride you at a gallop until your legs buckled and your eyes rolled up. I've got muscles you've never even dreamed of. I could squeeze you until you popped like warm champagne, and you'd beg me to hurt you just a little bit more.And you know why I don't? Because it's wrong."

Snape backed away from her, his eyes wide and his jaw hanging slack. "Have you gone mad?" he asked incredulously, then added "Let me rephrase that, have you gone even madder than you've always been? What's with all this use of the conditional tense? We've already done all that stuff, most of it several times ..." his voice trailed off and his eyes crossed.

"She has a point, though" said Viviane-as-Janet from her position in front of the hearth, "I feel a sudden urge to repent of all my acts of sexual opportunism. If someone would just untie me, I'll be getting back to France where I intend to enter Le Couvent de la Madeline as a penitent. She paused as her eyes unfocussed momentarily. "Though somebody please stop me if I show the slightest signs of anointing anybody's feet then wiping them with my hair," she continued. "Greasy hair! Ugghh" she shuddered, then winced as the action caused her straps to tighten.

Snape and Sirius turned to Dumbledore in consternation, but he seemed to be entirely preoccupied with something he was turning this way and that in his hands. It was obvious that the thing was a hat, but from some angles it seemed to be a red cap trimmed with white fur, whilst at other times it seemed to be a mitre.

"There's a note hidden inside the lining," mumbled Dumbledore vaguely, "It says 'Dear Albie, accepting the hat would be something of a poisoned chalice, but these people are ruthless and utterly humourless with it. If they're even a tenth as bad as they were in my day, I advise you to consider very carefully whether it might not be better to accept the terms - though you would be hammered into a depressingly etoliated and snivelling form, you would at least stand a chance of surviving until a more enlightened time can see you for what you really are. On the other hand, maybe if I and my kind had put up more of a stand, you wouldn't be facing the choice now. Hoping, this finds you in a scarily impressive state of power, your brother archetype Nikolas (n ... Sol Invictus, the Hogfather and all the rest).'"

Dumbledore turned to Sirius as if in a dream. "Do you think I'm scarily impressive?" he asked.

"Hmm Dumbledore. Ooh Scary," said Sirius with a sarcastic sneer that revealed the flash of a canine. "You have to talk to your people! That name is striking fear in nobody's hearts." Then he gasped in sudden shock before continuing in a much more composed tone of voice. "Alright, that made no sense at all, even if I am possibly under the control of the evil Widow Tewksberry," he said. "What's going on here?"

In the silence that followed, the five adults were suddenly aware of a whispered argument going on between the twins. " ... and I say it was YOU who botched it," hissed George angrily "I bet you were reading Playwarlock under your desk when we did Confundus charms with Flitwick."

"I was NOT!" hissed Fred in return, "and what's more I practised it just last night, including all the variations needed for the Vallis Apricus form."

"Vallis Apricus! What are you talking about? We agreed on the Para Allium," said a furious George.

He sighed and straightened up. "Oh well! That explains why it went wrong. Might as well put a stop to it now. Finite Incantatum!"

As George's wand swooped through the air, a message in huge white letters appeared before the astonished adults:

APRIL FOOL!