"I hate him," grumbled a handsome blonde teenager over breakfast. "So arrogant and full of himself. Flaunting everything he thinks he is. Thinks he's so much better then everybody else."
"Who you talkin' 'bout, Draco?" asked a muscled boy to his left through a mouth full of breakfast. Toast sprayed from his lips like so much confetti as he spoke.
"Who do you think I'm talking about, Crabbe?" the blonde sneered.
"Um… Potter?" the lack wit lackey hazarded.
"No, I'm talking about the Patil twins," Draco rolled his eyes, "Of course I'm talking about Potter, idiot!"
Draco Malfoy was a slight young man. Twelve years old, well on his way to maturing from a slightly ferretish kid to a handsome teenager. His hair was white blonde and slicked back into a hair style that would, were one to knock on it, shatter knucklebones. His skin was pale and smooth, less an issue of lack of sunlight, more of genetics. He was poised on the edge of a growth spurt of epic proportions, but for now he was still thin and short. Still, the overall effect was not entirely displeasing, and sooner or later he was going to be gorgeous.
And where the hormones were failing his appearance, they were at work on his brain. The kid's frontal cortex was lighting up like a Christmas tree, synapses firing with one message: Sex. Sex. Sex. Sex. Just like every other second year old boy at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
But where many of those boys were drooling after the newly forming figures of the school's second year girls, Draco's mind was going to a different place entirely. Thoughts that had never before occurred to him were suddenly kicking in.
Perhaps it was strange. Perhaps it was even abnormal. But who can know the ways the mind works?
For one reason or another, Draco found himself so irresistibly drawn to that figure… that tall figure… that freckly figure… that red-headed figure… the figure that Harry Potter seemed to have a monopoly on.
He watched, grinding his teeth as Ron Weasley slid into his place along the Gryffindor table, beside Harry. The two boys high-fived and grinned at one another before tucking in to kippers and toast.
Best friends they called themselves. Best friends. That Granger girl might be fooled. Even the rest of the Weasley family. But Draco knew better. He'd seen them after classes. In hallways. When they thought no one was watching.
The thought of it alone made his blood boil. What did Potter have that he didn't? Why would the handsome ginger go for Harry and not him? As Draco watched them punching each other on the arm and laughing with the rest of their friends, he knew that it should not have been Potter there. It should be him. HE should be the one whose hand was slowly working its way up Ron's leg. HIS head 'jokingly' resting on Ron's shoulder.
But Draco knew better then merely that. He knew that as far as Weasley was concerned, Draco was the enemy. He was against Harry, so he was against Harry's lover, too. If only Ron had known that it was his attentions Draco had been vying for all along. Ron was the reason Draco hated Harry so much- why else?
As he stared at them from across the Great Hall, surrounded by the nibbling and chomping of his house-mates, Draco decided that nothing sort of drastic action would work in this situation. He needed something big.
And he had just the ticket.
"Crabbe, Goyle," he said sharply, turning around to look at his munching cohorts. They looked at him with dull morning eyes. "I need you to sneak into the restricted section for me."
† † †
The two idiots followed orders to the letter. Well, the theoretical letter. After all, neither of them were what one might call 'proficient' at language skills. They retrieved the necessary book and brought it back to their leader.
Curiously enough, the necessary page for the concoction was already marked: dog-eared down, with illegible notes scribbled beside some of the ingredients on the list. Ah, well. At least the notations suggested excellent places to acquire the needed materials.
Draco did not trust his assistants to perform any further action, and so set them to minor tasks, such as procuring the ingredients for him. He was the primary one to work at it, mixing and brewing.
But then there was the wait time. Too long. But Draco could wait. Term was barely midway through, and spring would be the perfect time to throw his project into action.
He spent the time by slowly weaseling his way to Weasley. By nabbing him as a partner in the shared Gryffindor/Slytheren classes. By cornering him in corridors with uncomfortable questions that left Weasley blushing and doing his all to get away. By sending his goons to derail Potter and granger, forcing time alone for Ron and himself.
At first the efforts seemed in vain, but Draco kept at it all through the winter. As the weather began to warm, so, seemingly, did Ron.
By the time the concoction was finished, Draco felt confident in his plan's success.
There was only one problem. Venue.
† † †
Draco could not figure out where to enact his master plan. He needed a place. He needed somewhere where they would be safe from prying eyes- and ears. Somewhere where nobody was about to walk in on them. Somewhere that he could tart up to suit his needs. But where?
He knew of no such place in all of Hogwarts. The common rooms and dormitories were right out. An unused classroom seemed more attractive of an option, but they would be cold and unfitting to the idea he was trying to portray. The atmosphere would be all wrong!
So what to do? What to do?
The blonde racked his brain for ages, trying… trying to figure out something- anything!
It was while strolling along a hallway one afternoon, deep in thought trying to figure out his problem, that he noticed something. A door that he could have sworn was not there before. And he passed this way every day!
Where there had been only a tapestry of some Trolls being instructed in ballet, there was now a door. It was large. It was impressive. It was vivid pink.
Now Draco was POSITIVE that it had not been there before! A giant pink entrance way was not exactly something that slipped your attention.
In fact, not only had he never seen this door, he'd never even heard of it. And the students around here would usually be chatting about strange occurrences such as that as part of daily conversation. When disappearing steps and walls pretending to be doors were a fact of life, a massive pink door was something that would have had to come up at some point.
Of course, being a normal young boy, he had to open it immediately. The doorknob slowly twisted in his hand, and the door opened without a squeak.
He leaned back, glancing back and forth up and down the hall to be sure he was alone. He was. He stepped across the threshold.
Oh. Oh yes. He didn't know where this had come from. But it was perfect.
The evil cackling could be heard three floors away.
† † †
Ron,
Read the note in acid green ink.
Come to the hallway on the fifth floor Ravenclaw wing, by the tapestry of trolls in tutus. Come alone. Or else.
-Draco
The recipient eyed it mistrustfully. What did Malfoy want? The kid was crazy. An absolute loon. And a pervert. He was becoming quite the little stalker, following Ron wherever he went, pestering him with endless questions about Harry. PERSONAL questions that left Ron with a face as red as his hair.
He would like nothing more then to get his hands around that little creep's neck and squeeze… And if you asked him, he would swear to the death that this was all that he wanted to do with him.
Nobody ever expected Ron to be a good liar.
When he spoke of it later- to himself, of course; he'd be buggered if he ever admitted to having done anything of this sort- he always thought that he never could tell why he had gone. But gone he had. And he could never have expected what greeted him in a million years.
† † †
Draco had it all planned out. Ron would receive the note (delivered by a dually threatened first-year), and come to the prescribed meeting place. Once there, he would see the door. The door would, of course, be opened for him, just as Draco needed it to. And Ron would enter a darkened room.
All of this went perfectly according to the plan. Ron came, he saw, he entered. And once there, the door slammed shut behind him, throwing the room into total darkness.
Before the redhead could even shout "Oi! What's all this about?" a lone spotlight appeared. It was focused on the figure of a young man on a stage before Ron.
Draco looked up slowly. Somewhere in the room, a tune started. It was quiet, building up with slow percussion.
Ron merely stared, a look of 'what in the Hell…?' on his face. And then Draco opened his mouth.
"Hey, hey, you, you, I don't like your boyfriend!" he sang in a high, pre-pubescent note, "No way, no way, I think you need a new one!"
The lights widened to encompass the entire set stage. There was Draco, dressed in... Oh, lord; those could not possibly have been school-issue. Behind him, on the violently pink stage, were backup dancers of the first degree. Sixth-year girls, scantily clad as Draco, moving in a way that was probably meant to be fitting the beat. They were horrible dancers, really, but at least they were trying. Sort of.
"Hey, hey, you, you, I could be your boyfriend!" trilled Draco.
He launched into a full song and dance concerning Ron, Harry, and Draco. Why Ron should dump Harry (he was stupid and lame and nothing compared to Draco), and take up with Draco (so much better, and they both knew that Ron liked him).
Ron spent the entire time with mouth agape.
Dreaming. That was it. He was dreaming. He had to be! This was… patently absurd.
Yet here it was. Even after he rubbed his eyes and pinched himself repeatedly.
When Draco finished, he leapt from the stage (impressive in those heels), landing before the taller boy.
"Well?" he asked, chest heaving with execration.
Ron merely stared for a moment.
Well, that had been ridiculous. But damn if the boy didn't look absolutely ravishing in those skimpy clothes. And Harry had been particularly cold to him of late.
In his heart, Ron knew that he wouldn't be going out with Draco anytime soon. And Draco probably had known it all along, too. But this wasn't exactly a bad way to spend the evening.
Orange brows rose slowly as hazel eyes trailed slowly down the twelve year old body. One smile met another.
The polyjuiced Crabbe and Goyle were unceremoniously expelled from the room of requirement as a bed conveniently appeared in place of the stage.
† † †
Knocked from the room, Crabbe and Goyle stared at one another, blinking. What had just happened there?
"Hey," Goyle finally said, looking over his Neanderthalic friend, "You've got boobies."
Crabbe glanced down and nodded. Then he looked at Goyle's chest. "So've you," he pointed out, pointing.
"…It's not gay if we touch 'em, right?" the suddenly blonde-bombshell Crabbe asked slowly.
The brunette Goyle stared at his new hourglass figure. "Naw," he said, shaking his head and extending a hand to the boy/girl beside him.
And everyone got some and lived happily ever after.