"Transposition"

by shadowycat


"Chapter 1: Practice Makes Perfect…Trouble"

Remus Lupin was bored. Slumped in an easy chair in the staff room, he tried to decide just what to do about it. There was no one around to talk to, he’d finished grading all of his student assignments, and lunch wasn’t for another forty minutes or so. Idly, he flipped his wand back and forth from one hand to the other as he stared at the ceiling. Maybe he should brush up on his charms.

His pride still smarted a bit from the sneering of his ever so helpful colleague, Severus Snape, who’d laughed himself silly over the failure of Lupin’s Cheering Charm just yesterday. Failing miserably at the charm hadn’t been the way Lupin had intended to cheer Snape up, although it was probably the way Snape preferred it. After all, a dash of humiliation always seemed to make the Potions master’s day, as long as the humiliation was someone else’s, of course.

But darn it, it wasn’t Lupin’s fault that Charms had been his worst subject in school, well… after Potions. Certainly, he could perform many spells that were far more difficult than the charms were supposed to be. He never had any trouble with the curses, counter-curses and defensive spells that he needed to excel in his own area of expertise.

Perhaps when it came to the charms, he just had a mental block of some sort. After all, no one could truly be an expert in every subject no matter how knowledgeable Mr. “I could do your job better than you ever could” Potions master tried to make out that he was.

Well, he’d find a way to show him, and this was certainly the perfect time to practice. No one was around. So what should he try? There was nothing to cheer up here, so Cheering Charms were out, which was probably just as well. Anyway, surely he could manage something a bit more difficult…at least, when there wasn’t an audience around to distract him.

Suddenly, he snapped his fingers and sat up straighter in his chair. Now there was an idea. He’d try a Transposing charm. That was a moderately difficult one, and the perfect situation for practicing it was right in front of his eyes. Hanging from the cloak rack next to the door were a worn black cloak and a Hufflepuff scarf. They were separated by three hooks on the wall, which should be just enough space to make it work. If the items were too far apart, the spell was more difficult to work. Best to start with something easy.

Lupin held his wand lightly in his hand and tried to recall the correct incantation to make the two objects switch places. It had been awhile since he’d done this one. Okay, if he was to be strictly honest, he’d have to admit that he’d never successfully performed this charm, but he’d seen Flitwick do it a few times. How hard could it be? Anyway, if he failed, who’d know about it? No one was anywhere around. And he was never going to improve if he didn’t practice.

“You know you can do this!” he told himself firmly, as he banished the image of Snape’s laughing face from his mind. Pep talks were very important to successful magic and believing that you could do it was often half the battle. He grinned to himself at his foolishness. It was just as well that no one was here to see him making such a big deal out of performing a simple little spell. Enough stalling. Just get on with it. Carefully, he aimed at the cloak rack and gave his wand a flourishing flick as he stated the spell in a firm, determined tone.

At the instant the sound died from his lips, the door to the staff room opened and in rushed Snape and McGonagall mired deep in an argument about the fairness of some Quidditch technique. As Lupin watched in horrified fascination, the burst of bluish light from his wand enveloped the two teachers instead of hitting the cloak rack that was now behind them. Awash in blue sparkles, Snape and McGonagall seemed to blur momentarily, then the two of them fell gracelessly to the floor.

Lupin sat there with his mouth hanging open for a horrified moment, then he jumped to his feet to see if he’d managed to kill his colleagues or only render them unconscious. Internally, he debated in a half-serious manner which would be worse; neither scenario boded well for him. Why did it have to be Snape who walked in?

When he bent down to feel for a pulse at McGonagall’s throat, her eyes snapped open as he was groping at her neckline, and her closed fist came up and punched him squarely in the nose. As he sat down hard on the floor and felt for blood on his face, his assailant sat up and yelled, “What the bloody hell were you doing, Lupin? Have you finally lost all semblance of intelligence?”

As Lupin simply gaped at her uncharacteristic outburst, a very strange expression came over McGonagall’s face. Her mouth continued to hang open in a most unattractive manner, but words seemed to momentarily fail her. She held her hands out in front of her face as if she’d never seen them before. Then she clutched at her body as if it was a foreign object and looked in confusion at the still unconscious body of Severus Snape lying on the floor next to her.

Her eyes flicked back to Lupin, and she managed to whisper in a somewhat strangled tone, “What in hell did you do, you incompetent Gryffindor hack?”

Before Lupin could even begin to respond to this attack, Snape opened his eyes, groaned and sat up. He took one look at McGonagall and his eyes bugged out. All color drained from his face, not that there was much there to drain in the first place.

“What on earth is going on here?” he gasped in shock and immediately placed a hand to his throat as if he couldn’t quite believe the sound that had just emanated from it.

Lupin was belatedly beginning to catch on. Somehow, he’d managed to transpose Snape and McGonagall instead of the scarf and cloak. Now he knew that there was no doubt about it; he’d have been far better off if he’d simply killed them outright. Instead, he had a horrible feeling that it was more likely to be his life that suddenly hung by a slender thread.

Both Snape and McGonagall were staring at him now with identical murderous glares on their faces. He’d never noticed before how much they could look alike when they were both focused on causing intense pain to someone.

The extremely nervous wizard began scooting away from his accidental victims as quickly as possible with a rather sick grin on his face while he tried to think of a way to placate them and possibly avoid the thrashing that he just knew was coming his way at any moment.

Snape was faster though, and he managed to grab Lupin by the neck of his robes and haul him unceremoniously to his feet. “Any last words, you idiot?” he snarled in McGonagall’s refined voice.

Lupin hung there entranced by the spectacle of Snape’s words coming from McGonagall’s lips, when McGonagall herself grabbed her colleague’s arm and exclaimed, “Don’t be a fool, Severus. We may need him to cast the counterspell. Sometimes a charm can only be undone by the person who cast it.”

Lupin could practically hear the internal debate going on inside his assailant’s head. “Oh, but can’t I even maim him just a little…you know you want me to…”

“Oh, all right, Minerva,” Snape snarled angrily instead, giving in with ill grace. “He can live…for now. IF he proves himself useful and casts the counterspell this instant!”

Lupin nodded vigorously and pointed frantically at his throat, which was still being abused by Snape’s tight grip on his collar. With a nasty grin that actually looked far too at home on McGonagall’s face, Snape released his hold on Lupin and let the by now slightly oxygen starved professor fall back onto the floor once more.

With her lips pinched into a prim line, which also looked oddly at home on Snape’s face, McGonagall bent down and assisted Lupin back to his feet. “For all our sakes, Remus, I hope you do know the counterspell for this charm.”

As they both stared angrily at him, Lupin’s mind abruptly went blank.

Snape snorted and rolled his eyes at Lupin’s suddenly dazed expression. “There’s your answer, Minerva. This pitiful excuse for a wizard couldn’t cast a successful charm if his life depended on it.” He then directed another quelling glare at Lupin. “Which it does, actually.”

Lupin backed away from the angry wizard. Or was it witch? Oh, this was going to get confusing. He held up his hands defensively in front of himself and tried to summon up some of that boyish charm that used to be lurking in there somewhere. It had always worked on McGonagall in the past. Of course, it would have absolutely no effect on Snape, but having only one of them trying to kill him would certainly be an improvement over having both of them at his throat.

McGonagall frowned darkly at the bemused werewolf. “You do know the counterspell, don’t you, Remus?”

The implied threat in her tone caused Lupin’s throat to go dry. At least he assumed there was an implied threat, with Severus’s voice it could be hard to tell. There always seemed to be an implied threat…often there was an overt threat to keep it company.

Lupin pulled himself together as the more humorous aspects of the situation struck him. He spread his arms wide and smiled what he hoped was a confident smile. “Of course I do, Minerva. Don’t worry, we’ll have this little error corrected before you know it, then we’ll all have a good laugh about it together.” He smiled encouragingly.

Both Snape and McGonagall stared ominously at the man as if neither of them could ever envision actually laughing about anything with Lupin ever again.

Right, smiles all around, thought Lupin as he bent down to pick up his wand from the floor. When he had it in his hand once more, he straightened up and looked at them. “Ready.”

Snape just growled and McGonagall crossed her arms and sighed. “Just get on with it, Remus, before any other members of the staff come in and find us this way.”

Lupin nodded and flourished his wand. He spoke the counterspell and watched as they were once more enveloped in sparkling energy…this time a lovely shade of pastel orchid.

When the haze cleared, the smile on Lupin’s face faltered. They were both still glaring angrily at him. He glanced down at his wand. What was wrong with the silly thing anyway? Before they could attack him again, he flourished his wand once more. This would work! He’d never had a problem with this spell!

“Finite Incantatem!” he exclaimed confidently.

Snape and McGonagall shivered as the spell struck them. But, once again, Lupin could tell he’d failed from the looks on their faces, which were beginning to look murderous once more.

“I don’t understand! That should work with any spell!” Lupin stated in confusion.

McGonagall sighed resignedly. “Sometimes it doesn’t work when the original enchantment was something that went awry. Mistakes can be difficult to correct when they involve the human brain.”

Snape flexed his fingers and commented ominously, “Oh, good, then you won’t object if I revert to the original plan and simply kill him.”

Lupin held up a hand hurriedly. “Wait, wait! I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t I try the original spell again? After all, it worked correctly. You did transpose. Another hit should just…put you back where you belong.”

Snape snarled and took a threatening step toward Lupin. “Should is the operative word here, you dunderhead! At the moment, I wouldn’t trust you to so much as light your wand and expect you to do it correctly!”

McGonagall grabbed hold of her true body and kept its current occupant from reaching the hapless Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. “Violence isn’t going to solve anything, Severus. We need to remain calm here. Remus is right; perhaps the recasting of the charm would work. However,” she hastened to add when her fellow sufferer looked ready to explode, “perhaps it would be better to have Flitwick cast the charm. He’s much more knowledgeable in this area.”

Snape paused in his struggles and gave a long-suffering sigh. “You realize that means we have to tell people about this.”

McGonagall didn’t look any happier about that than her colleague. “In order to get the help we need, I don’t see any other way.”

Snape drew himself up stiffly and looked down his nose at McGonagall. “I refuse to be made a laughing stock in front of the entire school. Flitwick is a notorious blabbermouth, and you know it. If we have to talk to anyone, it should be Albus. At least he’s capable of being discreet.”

McGonagall nodded. “All right, we’ll go talk to Albus before doing anything else.”

Lupin didn’t particularly fancy being at that meeting so he said, “While you two are doing that, why don’t I head off to the library and do a little research into this charm. Maybe there’s a simple answer in the literature.”

Snape turned and spat, “It would have to be absurdly simple for you to discover it, Lupin.”

Lupin began backing toward the door. “Don’t worry, Severus. There’s an answer to this problem, and we’ll find it, you’ll see. By tomorrow, we’ll all be looking back on this and laughing. I’ll head to the library and see what I can find, and then I’ll meet you in the Headmaster’s office.” With that Lupin flashed them a weak smile and turned and fled from the room at top speed.

Snape frowned. “It’s not tomorrow’s laughter I’m worried about, it’s today’s if anyone finds out about this.”

McGonagall nodded in tightlipped agreement. “Come on then, let’s go see Albus.” With a flourish of ebony robes, she whirled around and headed for the door. Snape glared after her for a moment while re-seating the spectacles that her dramatic exit had nearly knocked off his face. Then he followed his body out the door of the staff room and headed for the Headmaster’s office.