Pairing: Joey and Howie
Words: elaborate; plod; fumigate; complacent


The owl dropped its package into Joey's waiting hands.  Six years
out of wizarding school, and six years in, and it still kinda felt
cool and magical when an owl arrived for him.

"What's that?" Chris asked, nodding at the brown paper wrapped
bundle.

"Let me get it open first, okay?"

"Well, hurry up.  Some of us aren't getting any younger."

Joey made a face at him.  "For the last time, there is no fountain
of youth in Florida, and there is no anti-aging spell either.  Give
it a rest."

"Says you."

"What, you don't believe me?"  Joey opened the package.  There was
a note on top, and he picked it up while Chris swooped down on the
contents.  "Chris, don't touch..."

Chris turned into a rabbit.

Joey sighed and picked him up.  "How many times do I have to tell
you that Howie knows better than to send something to me without
protecting it against you?"

Chris kicked him.

"Keep it up and you can stay that way," Joey warned him.

Chris kicked him again.  Joey dropped him on the floor.  Chris
immediately hopped over to the book Howie had sent and started
nosing at it.

Joey picked the book up, tucked it under his arm where Chris
couldn't get at it, and opened the note.

     Dear Joey,

     I thought you might like this.  Not all Hufflepuffs are
     dull plodders, despite what you might think.

     P.S.  I've put an anti-rabbit spell inside; you'll have
     to actually read the book to find it.

He opened the book.  It was "The Diary of Anais Nin".  He didn't
get it.  It sounded like the kind of boring thing a Hufflepuff like
Howie would read.  Not that he'd ever said anything bad about
Hufflepuffs to Howie.  Howie had graduated before Joey started
school, and when they met up again in Europe, in rival bands,
they'd found things in common that had everything to do with being
naked.  Unfortunately, even with Apparition to help out, they only
rarely found the opportunity to do naked things together.  Howie
said it kept them from getting complacent about things.  Joey
thought maybe Howie was screwing AJ on the side, which was fine
with him, since he was hardly the most faithful boyfriend around.

Chris disappeared under the bed.  Joey had never been all that
great at Transfigurations, or any of his classes, for that matter. 
It looked like he was going to read the book if he wanted to get
Chris back to being Chris.

Hopefully, Joey picked the book up by the spine and shook it to see
if anything would fall out.  Nothing.  So Howie had either written
the spell in the book or fastened the piece of paper with the spell
into the book.

Hell.  It looked like a long book too.

There was a knock on the door, and it was flung open.  Justin
barged in.  "Hey, Chris!  You gotta--- ew, man, it really stinks in
here.  You're going to have to fumigate this place or something. 
It's worse than your bus."

"Chris is under the bed," Joey said gloomily.

"He is?"  Justin laid down on the floor.  "The only thing under the
bed is a-- oh.  Hey, Chris."

He stood up with Chris cuddled in his arms.  "You turned Chris into
a bunny?  That's not cool, man.  You know he doesn't like rabbits
ever since that thing with the E-A-S-T-E-R bunny."

"I think he knows how to spell.  And it wasn't me, it was Howie."

Justin looked around suspiciously.  "What'd you turn *him* into? 
A frog?"

"No.  Howie sent me this," Joey hefted the book in demonstration,
"and Chris opened it first.  Howie must've put a hex on it, 'cause
he turned into a rabbit.  The note says there's a spell to reverse
it in the book, but I gotta read the book to find it."

"You?  Read?"  Justin snorted.  "We've got a concert tomorrow.  No
way are you going to have that done before then.  Even if he
skipped the interviews and everything."

"I know.  But what else can I do?  It's not like I can give the
book to Lance and make him read it for me -- it might still be
hexed, and then it'll be Joey and the Four Rabbits performing live
at Tulsa tomorrow."

"I think we're in Texas."

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah.  But I wasn't gonna touch the book.  I got a better idea."

"What's that?"

Justin grinned.  "Please.  A Hufflepuff outwit a Slytherin? 
Never."  He picked up the phone, and dialed.  "Hey, Lance, can you
come over to Chris' room?  And bring your wand.  Chris is a
rabbit."  A pause.  "No, I didn't do it.  Stop threatening me.  Why
would I do that to my best friend?  Okay, so I would do that to my
best friend, but it wasn't me this time, it was Howie.  Yeah, I
know he's a Hufflepuff.  And a Backstreet Boy.  Joey says it was
him.  Sure, I believe him.  Since when do Gryffindors lie?  That
doesn't count.  That doesn't count either.  Look, Lance, just get
over here, okay?"  Justin hung up.  "That guy has got to get laid. 
He's way too uptight."

"Sex is not the cure for everything."

Justin smirked at him.

"Sex is not the cure for Lance," Joey said, backtracking.

"No, because there is no cure for Lance."

Lance arched his eyebrows as he walked in the door Justin had left
flung open.  "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"  He closed the
door behind him and locked it.

"Good."

"Bad."

Lance shook his head and ignored them.  "Put Chris on the bed."

Justin set the rabbit down.  It twitched, and looked as though it
would jump off the bed.  Lance glared at him, and Chris sat still.

"All right.  This should work."

Five minutes later, Chris was still a rabbit, only now he had
another rabbit to keep him company.  The black-haired, floppy eared
rabbit nuzzled the light-brown rabbit, who bit him.  Chris gave
Lance a reproachful look.

"Now what?" Justin asked.  "'Cause, y'know, I ain't doing nothing
that gets me turned into a rabbit."

Joey sighed.  "No, that's probably smart.  I'm just going to have
to read the book.  I'll skim through it or something.  Can you, um,
entertain Chris and Lance while I read?"

"Entertain them?"

"You know Chris."

Justin eyed Chris thoughtfully.  Chris stared back, unblinking. 
"Yeah.  I see your point.  I'm gonna stay here though.  I don't
want to contaminate my room with rabbit-funk."

"Yeah, good idea."  Joey picked up the book and started for the
door.  "Oh, and Justin?"

Justin was already playing with Chris' ears.  "What?  C'mon, Joey,
I think I can be trusted with a couple of rabbits for a few hours."

"You get to tell JC about this."  Joey smirked.  When Chris put the
band together, he hadn't been trying to form an all-wizard group. 
It had just kind of happened that way.  Justin had been an obvious
choice -- the Slytherin in the kid just shone through, even if
correspondence school meant he lacked all the Slytherin
indoctrination.  He was blonde ambition, 100%.  That Joey had
attended the same school as the both of them was mere coincidence;
none of them had been there at the same time as the other two.  And
neither JC nor Jason had been a wizard.  Which, in the end, had
been the reason Jason had left the group.  Not musical differences. 
Not work ethic.  But because he couldn't handle being divebombed by
owls.

JC, on the other hand, after Jason had finally gotten him to notice
that there were owls following them everywhere had just taken it as
inspiration to start wearing feathers on his outfits.  Joey wasn't
sure whether JC knew the rest of NSYNC were wizards or if he just
thought they were all very very gay.  He was leaning toward the
latter theory, based on JC's Christmas gifts from last year of
flavored lube.

"Hey!  Not fair!" Justin squawked.  "Why do you get the easy job?"

"Trust me," Joey said, looking at the thick book.  "If I could
trade, I would."