DISclaimer: I do not own HP, nor can I ever hope to own HP. However, I can write fanfiction to my heart's content.
...enjoy...
"Okay, lacewing flies, leeches, knotgrass, the powdered horn of a bicorn and shredded skin of a boomslang." Harry muttered under his breath. Malfoy rolled his eyes.
"Potter, we've been working on this potion for a month. We all know what the recipe says." He snapped, "So can we get to it then? We only need to add the shredded skin of a boomslang and then we're finished."
Exactly one month ago, at the beginning Slughorn's class, the walrus-like man had cheerfully told everyone that they were going to do partner brewing. The partners would be making Polyjuice Potion and then they would trade hairs and turn into the other person for an hour to prove they'd done it correctly. Normally this wouldn't be a problem- however, for every potions class this term, Gryffindor had double potions with Slytherin.
Slughorn obviously was immune to the notion that Slytherin and Gryffindor hated each other- either that or he was intending on bringing inter-house peace between them- and he decided to pair everyone up with a partner from a different house. Harry, unfortunately, ended up with Malfoy. And of course, since Polyjuice Potion took so much effort, it meant spending extra hours after class stirring and adding ingredients. All in all, this potion assignment meant too much time to have spent with the grumpy blond.
"Just checking that we had everything." Harry replied, trying to be patient, "This is a very complicated potion."
"Polyjuice potion. I can't believe Slughorn wants Slytherins and Gryffindors to turn into each other- even if it is only for one hour."
Harry couldn't believe it, either. He'd had his experiences with Polyjuice Potion second year and incidentally, that experience had also involved Malfoy. That last time, he and Ron had been trying to spy on Malfoy, and this time Harry was making the potion so that he could turn into Malfoy.
Also, based on his last experience, Harry knew that making a mistake with Polyjuice Potion could be disastrous. He winced at the memory of Hermione in the hospital wing after accidentally using a cat hair.
Malfoy waited until Harry had stirred the potion sixty times clockwise- one stir represented one minute, and no, Harry couldn't just sir it one time for one minute because that's not how potions works- and then quickly dumped in the shredded skin.
The mixture began to gloop and bubble, and Harry and Malfoy looked at each other.
"Here." Malfoy plucked a hair from his head and handed it to Harry. Harry gave Malfoy a hair of his own and the two boys ladled potion into small glasses akin to shot glasses.
Harry dropped Malfoy's hair into his glass and waited with baited breath for the potion to turn an ugly puke color, like it had with Goyle and Crabbe. However, Harry was surprised to see the potion turn a silver color, with the same texture and consistency of unicorn blood. He looked up to watch his own hair turn Malfoy's potion into a light amber.
"Pretty." Harry said before he could stop himself. Malfoy glanced at him with a raised eyebrow, but was interrupted from saying anything scathing by Ron's disgusted holler.
Harry watched amused as Ron swung his shot glass around for the whole class to see, complaining loudly about its disgusting color and consistency. Harry could understand why Ron was so upset- Montague's hair had turned the potion into something that looked not unlike a bright yellow boogey.
Slughorn ran to fix the mess, and Harry turned to look Malfoy in the eye. Simultaneously- as though both boys were intent on making sure the other also had to suffer through the transformation- they gulped down the potion.
Harry, who had been expecting to taste something absolutely horrendous when he gulped down the potion found that Malfoy tasted metallic with a curiously sweet after taste. He did not, in fact, taste like vanilla.
Harry didn't have much time to marvel at the taste of Malfoy because a somewhat familiar boiling feeling took over his body. He felt himself shrink slightly. This too was surprising because Malfoy always held himself in a way that made people think that he was taller. Malfoy was also skinnier than Harry.
Harry gazed over at Malfoy, and Malfoy looked at Harry. Harry was silently congratulating their success- Malfoy looked exactly like him. However, Malfoy's face suddenly twisted into a violent sneer. Harry was shocked- he'd never seen that look on his face. Yeah, it appeared on Malfoy's face on occasion, but that Harry's face had never contorted into an expression that held so much venom. It was intimidating to see himself with such hatred, though he had to admit that there was something about the look that suited him.
"Potter!" Malfoy shouted, "Something went wrong.." Harry would have brushed it off as Malfoy being bitter, but an undertone of panic alerted Harry that something really was off.
"What?"
"Your eyes are green."
"Duh." Harry said, rolling said eyes, "It's called genetics Malfoy."
"No, I mean on my face, your eyes are green. And I'm willing to bet that my eyes on your face are still silver." Harry looked and Malfoy was right. The Harry face that Malfoy was wearing had silver eyes. It was sort of eerie to see himself with silver eyes.
"So?" He asked.
"By Merlin Potter, please try not to look so dim inside my body, I have a reputation to uphold."
"You mean the reputation of being a self righteous prat?" Harry muttered under his breath. He watched, fascinated, as his face transformed into a satisfied smirk. Watching himself from a different body was simply captivating.
"Exactly." Malfoy said, "But the point is that something went wrong with the potion. The potion is supposed to change everything- including eyes." He paused for a second, turning back to the recipe to study the list of ingredients and instructions. His eyes grew wide.
"Shit. Potter, did you add the fluxweed on day eight?" Harry stared at Malfoy, his green eyes widening.
"No." He whispered.
"What do you mean, "no"?" Malfoy almost screamed.
"I mean I didn't add it, you prat!" Harry snapped. He watched as Malfoy as Harry buried his head in his hands, cussing silently in a language Harry didn't recognize. Of course, since Harry didn't understand what Malfoy was saying, he could have been saying anything, but judging by the look of anger on his face, Harry thought it was safe to assume Malfoy was cussing.
Malfoy abruptly sat up and pulled a mirror out of his robes- he was still wearing his robes, though now they were a bit too small for his Harry sized body.
"I, The Boy Who Lived, messed up big time, and am forever a prat and a big head." He said solemnly to the mirror. Harry raised one eyebrow. It was so cool that Malfoy could raise one eyebrow. Harry as Harry couldn't, but with Malfoy's face, suddenly he could.
"What in Merlin's name are you doing?" he asked.
"I figure I'm never going to get you say that for real, so I figured I'd watch you say it, so that I can burn the look on your face as you say it into my memory forever." Malfoy replied, looking proud of himself.
"Oh whatever." Harry said. "So, back on topic, what is so bad about me forgetting to add the fluxweed?"
"You forgot to add the fluxweed!" Slughorn had fixed the drama between Ron and Montague, and had crept up behind the Harry and Malfoy.
"Yeah…what's the big deal?" He shrunk back as twin looks of rage and desperation appeared on both Slughorn and Malfoy-as-Harry's faces.
"Without the fluxweed, stirring the potion sixty times clockwise does nothing to determine the amount of time you spend as the other person. Without that time restriction, it is possible that you may never return to your real forms."
"Idiot." Malfoy put in.
"Are you serious!" Harry burst out, "Can you fix this Slughorn?"
"I don't know." Slughorn said, "There is only one documented case of this, ever, and I don't think the problem was never solved. We'll take this up with Madam Pomfrey, and if that fails we'll go straight to the Professor Dumbledore." And what if that fails, too? Harry thought desperately.
Slughorn turned back to the rest of the class.
"You all still have an hour left of class. I expect you to write a two foot length of parchment on the importance of timing in potions, so you could get a start on that. I have to attend to something right now, and so I fully expect that when I get back not one thing will be out of place. Harry, Draco, follow me."
Harry was so used to calling Draco, Malfoy, that he almost looked around wondering who Draco was.
"Aw, wee potty got in twouble!" Pansy shrieked, and the Slytherins roared with laughter at the bad joke. The Gryffindors laughed, too, but at the Slytherins- jeering them on their bad sense of humor.
Slughorn started trying to regain order, but Harry hadn't been paying any attention to the arguments volleying across the room. He was busy watching silver eyes struggling to remain calm through the taunts coming from the Gryffindors to the Slytherins, and from Slytherins to Gryffindors. Harry watched as quick emotions passed through the Malfoy's eyes. Finally, after a particularly dreadful insult from Pansy about Ron's freckles, Malfoy looked up.
"Enough." He said quietly. All of the Slytherins died down, looking uncomfortable.
"Right. Sorry Malfoy. Er, it's kind of weird that you look like Potter now, though." Blaise said. Malfoy shrugged.
Harry was shocked, as was the whole room. Slughorn took this silence as an opportunity to drag Harry and Malfoy out of the room.
"That was pretty impressive." Harry said, walking quickly to catch up with Malfoy's fast step.
"Whatever." Malfoy snapped, "I hate you, Potter."
It turned out that they had to go to Dumbledore after all. Pomfrey was not able to help. Harry had known she wouldn't have been too helpful- medical care for magical accidents was usually handled by St. Mungo's Hospital. However, it was a bit disappointing and awkward to stand before Dumbledore's office still wearing Malfoy's body.
"Slughorn, Harry and Malfoy. To what do I owe this pleasure?" Dumbledore looked up at them.
"Bloody Potter messed up the Polyjuice Potion, and now it seems like we'll never regain our old bodies."
Dumbledore gazed at Malfoy sternly. "Draco I presume? What exactly did happen here? It can't have been an hour since you took the potion? Perhaps if you wait…"
"They forgot to add the fluxweed, Professor Dumbledore, sir." Slughorn said, wringing his hands, "And I think it might be irreversible."
Dumbledore frowned. That was not a good sign, Harry thought, Dumbledore only frowns if something is really, really bad.
"Let's call upon a second opinion," Dumbledore said. He walked over to the fire and threw in Floo Powder, "Professor Snape?" he called into the large green flames.
"Hm?" Snape stepped through the fireplace, took one glance at Malfoy and Potter, and stopped dead in his tracks. Harry watched in partial amusement as Snape tried to decide whether to be sneeringly glad that Potter messed up so badly, or angry that Potter's screw up involved Malfoy.
"Potter forgot the fluxweed?" Snape drawled, settling for a neutral tone while glaring at Harry, "My, my."
"Can you fix it?" Slughorn had switched from wringing his hands to pulling on his large mustache.
"I may be able to conjure something up." Snape said, "But why can't you do it, Slughorn?" Slughorn flushed.
"Going into retirement puts a man out of practice. Besides, this is a rare mistake, and it's a mistake that can't be caught until the potion is consumed. I wouldn't have noticed that something was awry because the mistake had to do with time Professor. Time is not tangible unless you have a table or a map."
"A table, a map or common sense, perhaps?" Snape said, his tone somewhat mocking.
Harry wasn't quite sure what they were talking about anymore.
"Look, can you or can you not help us?"
"If it were some other characteristic that changed, like the hair or the nose then it would be much easier to fix the mistake. However, that would mean that you made the potion somewhat right- in other words you added the fluxweed at some point during the process. But you dunderheads are incapable of the simplest things- you did not add the fluxweed at all since the thing that the potion didn't change was the eyes. The eyes are the gateway to the soul, am I right, Professor Dumbledore?"
"So? Can you fix it or not?" Harry asked.
"Well, as long as your soul is in that form, you will stay looking like that. Fixing it will be complicated. Do not expect anything to be done over night. It will take about four months for me to collect the things I need, and perhaps four more months for me to create a potion to fix it."
"So you can fix it then?"
"Please have more faith in me Mr. Potter."
"In your dreams." Harry muttered.
"I am happy to assure you, Potter, that you do not appear in my dreams. Not everything is about you." Snape sneered. He scooped up a handful of Floo Powder and stopped at the threshold of the fireplace. "And Professor Slughorn? Please don't fill my old students with nonsense. Hardly anything is irreversible if you know what you are doing."
With a flourish, Snape vanished.
"Well, I'm really tired. Can we discuss this tomorrow?" Harry asked. It was already dinner time, and he was eager to tell his friends about what had happened.
"In case you have forgotten, Potter, you still look like me. How do you think that is going to go over with your little Gryffindor friends?"
"Um." Harry said, "We could use the messed up Polyjuice Potion and put one of our hairs in it and try to switch again?"
"You are daft. It doesn't work that way. Everything on my body is mine, but it looks like you. Everything on your body is yours, but it looks like me. The Polyjuice Potion asks for something that is from the original person. Get it? Even if you take a piece of hair, you are still taking one of my hairs, not one of yours."
"Crap. So even if I take one of your hairs, I'm still going to look like "Malfoy" because it's still your hair. I'd hoped that since you looked like that, using one of those hairs would switch it." (1)
"You are an idiot."
"So what if I take a hair from my head? Will it work then?"
"No."
"Why?"
"It just won't. I can't understand why Slughorn thinks you're so great at potions because you stink. Actually, I can't imagine why everyone dotes on you because you…."
"Hem. You both are going to have to stay in the Room of Requirement for tonight. Tomorrow… Well, we'll figure it out when we get there." Dumbledore interrupted. "I assume you are both familiar with the Room of Requirement?"
Indeed they both were.
"Perhaps the way to fix it is to get rid of the other party. If you kill Malfoy, then maybe this will all go away." Ron said when Harry finished his story. Hermione rolled her eyes.
"You are a blockhead." She snapped.
"If you kill me, I'll come back and haunt you." Malfoy snapped. They were all huddled together in the Room of Requirement. The room was split neatly in half- the green and silver of Slytherin on one half and the gold and red of Gryffindor on the other. However, the Gryffindor side was on the side with the door out, and the Slytherin side had the door to the bathroom. Harry and Malfoy would have to share the whole room and wouldn't be able to avoid each other completely during their wait for a cure.
Harry, Hermione and Ron huddled together on Harry's side while Malfoy sulked on his side. Crabbe and Goyle were not there.
"He's in Slytherin. Their definition of "friend" is different then everyone else's." Hermione said when Ron brought this up, "But honestly, I'll help do some research to get this fixed. And Ron will help me. What are you doing for classes?"
"I'm going to take Malfoy's classes, and Malfoy will take mine." Harry said, "Or at least until someone notices that our eyes are different colors. When that happens, Suddenly I'll get a call home from the Dursleys, and then a few days later, Malfoy will come down with an infectious disease, and we can both return here."
"You are actually going to sleep in the Slytherin common room?" Ron asked in alarm. Then his eyes grew wider, "And he's going to be sleeping in ours!"
Harry sighed, "Things are going to be a bit weird from here on out. Please do your best to make sure that Malfoy fits in. Things could get dangerous for both of us if people found out."
"Yeah, but you aren't going to have anyone to back you up in Slytherin! Slytherins are so slimy and sneaky. If you get caught, they'll kill you." Ron said.
"Don't worry about it." Harry said, trying to sound brave.
"Right. Well, it'll be easier to pretend Malfoy is you if he takes that stick out of his arse and acts like a real person. But it probably won't be possible because Malfoy is a Slytherin after all." Harry and Hermione laughed.
"Well, just try your best not to blow our cover. You might hate him, but if you out him, you out me, too."
"We'll do this for you, Harry." Hermione said, patting him on the hand, "but we really should get back to the Great Hall to eat. We're hungry, and also it's really awkward talking to you when you look like Malfoy."
The door closed, and Harry suddenly felt very alone.
"So all Slytherins are untrustworthy slime, huh?" Malfoy's cool voice sounded from behind him, "Slytherins are all cruel bastards? Careful what you wish for, Potter."
Harry turned and glared at Malfoy. Malfoy's grey eyes stared back at him from his face. They both grew very quiet, and things got real intense. Then Malfoy broke his gaze and smirked, "It's easy to be who they expect you to be. After a while, you might become what they make you into."
"Sod off." Harry snapped, "just because I messed up the potion doesn't give you the right to treat me like it's all my fault. You should have checked!"
Malfoy just shrugged, "I'm just living up to expectations." He replied, his silver eyes flashing with an emotion that Harry couldn't quite place.
"Whatever." Harry drew the curtains around his bed, and heard Malfoy do the same.
Harry didn't go to sleep right away. Instead he lay in his four poster bed listening to his unlikely roommate breath. It wasn't until he was almost asleep that Harry realized what the unnamed emotion in Malfoy's eyes was: disappointment. In Harry? Harry wasn't sure, but it made him feel bad for some reason, and he slipped into uncomfortable dreams.
(1) This is kind of complicated. If you don't get it, disregard it completely, and just fill your mind with happy thoughts. Pretty much all that happened in this scene is Draco explained to Harry that using the messed up Polyjuice Potion wouldn't work. I got all technical because Draco wanted to be a know-it-all snob.
*Draco glares at Ondegeist13 from a corner
DM: I am not a know-it-all snob!
HP: No, you're a snobby snob.
DM: So there! Wait...*turns to glare at Harry
DM: That wasn't very nice!
HG: You aren't very nice!
DM: *ignores Hermione and looks off into space
HP: I wonder where this story is headed! I hope Ondegeist13 hurries up and makes her point
RW: You already know where this story is headed.
DM: That is assuming he read the script.
HP: I did! And I'm pretty excited for the part where I get to *Draco starts singing loudly to cover up Harry's voice* Malfoy.
Ondegeist: You didn't hear that right? Well, since you didn't hear that, don't you dare make assumptions!
RW: Right. Anyway Review! You know you want to!
Ondegeist13: Exactly. This is my first HP fic, so tell me what you think!
SS: I am Snape, the Potions Master. Flames are for brewing potions, not for stories.