Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended. Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass characters are the moral property of the Lewis Carroll estate, although they are now out of copyright.

Notes: This was written for the Live Journal hp_adoptaprompt fest, summer 2013 round. I've changed the prompt a little, for which I hope I will be forgiven, but the opportunity to creep around in Draco's subconscious was just too tempting.

Huge thanks to kohrin for the beta and to emansil_12 for her work as both a beta and as a mod. This fest was a great idea and she's made it all work beautifully. Thanks also to dawnlett for her comments which helped to calm my nerves a lot. Lastly, thank you to annabellemint for the prompt and reprompt, and to the bottom_draco mods for inspiring the original prompting of it in the first place!

It was a warm day, and Hagrid was awfully boring, droning on and on about Hinkygryffs, or Screwt Puffs or some other filthy animal. It really wasn't Draco's fault at all if his eyelids drooped a bit. The wind made a soothing rustling noise through the leaves high above him and the September sun beat on the back of his neck. Dragon gauntlets and protective something-or-other... It wasn't like Draco was ever going to need to know how to feed livestock; that was House Elf work. His head felt heavy. Good thing they'd levitated their desks and chairs down to the lakeside. It meant that he had something to rest his head on.

There was a white rabbit with red eyes checking his pocket watch. That was a bit more interesting. Draco didn't think he'd ever seen a rabbit with a pocket watch before, nor one with a waistcoat pocket to keep it in. It seemed to be late. It was muttering about something being important.

A talking rabbit is a Magical Creature, isn't it? Draco thought. If that oaf Hagrid spotted him slipping away from his desk to follow it, then that could be his excuse. Draco slid a little lower on his chair, until he managed to drop right down to the ground. He crawled under a couple of desks then dashed after the interesting rabbit with the fur so white.

Draco followed the rabbit into a rabbit hole. Curiouser and curiouser , he thought. I'm quite positive I was too big to fit inside a rabbit hole this morning . He crawled along for a while until, to his annoyance, he lost sight of the rabbit. He was just considering turning back – and wishing he'd brought his Hand Of Glory so he could see in the dark – when the ground sloped suddenly beneath his feet and he found himself falling.

He fell for an awfully long time. In fact he began to wonder whether he would ever land. That would be nice, he thought. No more school, no more Dark Lord, no more Potter. Just this fluttering feeling of air round my ankles and up my robes. I wonder how cold that breeze gets in the winter. There were strange objects set into alcoves in the walls of the tunnel as he fell. Despite the slowness with which he was falling, he was still too quick to grab any of them. Mind you, if I fall until the end of time then I don't see how I'm ever going to manage to lose my virginity, and I would rather like to do that, Draco mused. Although as that's never looked likely anyway, I don't suppose that it makes much difference.

He floated past a skull in a paper crown, here was a crystal cauldron, there a pile of dried frogs, then a statuette of a rearing snake rendered in green and silver Bertie Botts Beans.

I shall fall like this forever. It will be peaceful, but I wonder whether I might not get hungry if— Draco landed gently on his bottom.

It was dark overhead; before him was another long passage. The White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it. There was not a moment to be lost: away went Draco like the wind, and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, `Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!' He was close behind it when he turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen.

Draco found himself in a high-ceilinged, windowless room, with the corpse of a Basilisk coiled along one side of it. Draco decided to stick to the opposite wall, which he found to be full of locked doors, all of which were decorated with snakes. Which was nice. In one corner was a three-legged table made of solid glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key with wings, and Draco's first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! None of those doors had keyholes. However, as he investigated again, he came upon a low curtain he had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high; he tried the little golden key in the lock, and to his great delight it fitted!

He knelt down and looked through the door into the loveliest garden you ever saw. It was even finer than the one at the Manor, which was saying something! Unfortunately, the door was so small that he could not even get his head through it. Just at that moment, the silly key took it into its head to spread its tiny wings and flutter out of the keyhole and into the shadows high up in the vaulted ceiling. Draco wished he had a broom with him so he could fly after it and catch it.

It wasn't fair and he was horribly tired. There was no way out of this horrible chamber. To make things worse, he was absolutely certain to die a virgin. Draco sat down and was horrified to feel the hot moisture of his own tears falling onto his cheeks. Now pull yourself together! he admonished himself firmly, for he was very good at giving himself stern advice. Unfortunately he didn't always manage to follow his own orders as well as he did his father's. Malfoys don't cry. Crying is for Mudbloods and Half breeds and foreigners. Draco Malfoy sniffed deeply but it didn't staunch the flow. And gingers! he growled at himself.

He wandered over to the glass table again, rubbing his eyes and bawling like a disgrace. The key was still gone, but now there was a glass vial there which certainly hadn't been there before. Tied to the vial was a label with "Drink Me" written on it. Of course, Draco knew better than to drink random potions just because they told him to, so he reached for his wand to run some tests on it.

He was surprised that he hadn't thought of his wand before now, but he certainly hadn't because if he had then he would have noticed that it wasn't there. I must have left it on the desk, thought Draco, what a very stupid-headed excuse for a Pureblood I am.

That thought made him cry even harder and – for some reason – crying even harder made him unstopper the vial and drink down the contents. It tasted of peacock and Crème brûlée. He sniffed again and wiped his nose on his sleeve. Not that it mattered, with nobody around to see him. He blinked back the wetness in his eyes. He didn't seem to be crying anymore, which probably mean that the potion he'd just downed had been some kind of Cheering Draft, so it was a good thing that he'd drunk it.

His feet felt wet, which was odd. Also, for some reason the moistness of his eyes was magnifying things. He blinked again, harder this time. How strange, he thought, that table looks bigger than it was a moment ago. It must be because it's glass and that reflects and so does water. For, all of a sudden, the floor was terribly wet. In fact it was past his shapely ankles and soaking the hem of his robes. The table's top was high above him now. The water smelled salty. It was up to his knees.

The water's rising and the table's growing! Draco thought in alarm. And then a very frightening thought struck him. Or perhaps I'm shrinking. I'm collapsing down like a telescope, or an umbrella, or a trunk under a shrinking charm…

The water was lapping his chest now, making his nipples wet and cold and pointy. What if I were to drown? he wondered. If I keep on shrinking then soon the water will come up to my chin. Oooh! For the water had, indeed, reached his pointy little chin. What an undignified way for a Prefect to die: drowning in my own tears. I had hoped for a noble death, at some point in the distant future, and a statue in my honour.

'Excuse me,' said a quiet voice at his elbow.

Draco turned sharply. He thought he recognised the face, the creature who had spoken had a face like Longbottom's, but he didn't usually have the whiskers and the pointy ears. Draco would certainly have remembered a school fellow with a tail, and he was sure he'd never met one, but this creature definitely had a tail. Draco wondered whether Longbottom had become a Weremouse, before remembering that that wasn't a real Magical Creature so he couldn't have done. Mind you, I've never paid attention in Care of Magical Creatures lessons, so how would I know?

'I have a long and strange tale,' said Longbottom.

Draco looked at the sizeable length of flesh emanating from Longbottom's surprisingly attractive backside and could only agree.

'Do you want it?' asked Longbottom.

Draco found that he did and so he nodded.

They swam to a shore, where Draco could see a strange collection of creatures gathering. Longbottom chattered all the way, but Draco barely listened to his words, so distracted was he by his tail.

'Are you even listening?' demanded Longbottom.

'It's very long,' Draco found himself remarking.

'Yes it is,' Longbottom retorted. 'But that's none of your business.' The mouse was much more outspoken than the boy Longbottom had ever been.

All of the animals on the shore gathered around Longbottom and dragged him from the sea of tears. They were dressed in red and gold tunics with hearts appliquéd to them. Draco was left to splutter and splash alone. A donkey with three hearts on his tunic turned to a giraffe with a quincunx of five hearts on his.

'Are you ready, now, Dean?' it asked in an Irish accent.

The giraffe dipped its head several times in a nod and the two of them swept the Longbottom mouse up onto their shoulders.

'His tail is long!' shouted out the giraffe.

'His bottom's long!' called out a red squirrel near the front of the line which the creatures formed with the hoisted Longbottom at its centre.

'And he's very good in bed!' chanted two monkeys in unison.

Then the crowd of creatures marched off singing:

His tail is long,

His bottom's long

And he's very good in bed.

We all want to bend over for

The longest tail in Gryffindor,

And then we'll give him head!

Draco was left to drag himself up onto shore and to shake his head at all the nasty, dirty-minded animals. For I'm sure that I never think about sex at all, he reassured himself.

Just then he caught a glimpse of the White Rabbit in the distance so Draco hurried after it.

'I'm late, I'm late…' it was muttering as it disappeared between two trees.

The trees turned out to be the edge of a forest, but by the time Draco reached it, there was no sign of the White Rabbit. Disconsolately, Draco wandered into the forest. After a while, he smelled a strange – but not unpleasant – smell and decided to walk towards it. The smell turned out to be drifting from a cauldron balanced on top of a huge mushroom. Or perhaps I'm actually just very, very small still , Draco thought. Looming over the cauldron and stirring it was a long, black caterpillar with a hooked beak. It was wearing a green and silver tabard with a single spade sign in the centre of it.

'What do you want?' it asked Draco with a sniff.

'Excuse me Mr Caterpillar—' started Draco, as politely as he could. He was going to ask it whether it knew where the White Rabbit had gone.

But he didn't get a chance, because the caterpillar interrupted him with, 'Professor Caterpillar if you please!'

'Yes, sir, Professor, sir, I—'

'It's very impolite to go barging into somebody else's forest, you know.'

'I'm sorry, sir, Professor, sir, I didn't realise this was—'

'And it's very rude to interrupt someone when they are speaking to you!'

Draco took a very deep breath, and tried very hard to be polite, although it was not something which he had ever been very good at. 'I just wanted to ask—'

'Time's up!' declared the caterpillar. With that, it picked up a large pipe, dipped the end of it into the cauldron and then lit it with his wand. A dreamy look came over its face as it sat back and inhaled deeply.

I should have known better than to expect to get any sense out of a giant caterpillar, Draco chided himself.

He marched deeper into the wood, while the caterpillar behind him murmured, 'Ah, Lily…' softly several times. Then it moaned in a way which certainly shouldn't be allowed in public. As the sound and rapidity of its breaths increased Draco picked up his pace to a run. This strange world was certainly peopled by some sex-crazed animals. Draco had a mind to have a word with whoever was in charge.

Draco ran faster and faster until a movement in the trees caused him to slam to a halt. He turned, hoping that it was the Rabbit, but instead found a cat sitting in a tree.

'Who are you?' Draco demanded, because he'd had enough of being polite for one day; it hadn't got him anywhere.

'I am the Cho-shire cat,' it said.

It wore a blue tabard, with four bronze diamonds at the corners.

'What do you want?' Draco asked it.

The cat took on a dreamy expression. 'I want cock,' it replied. 'Don't we all?'

'It's sex, sex, sex all the time here,' Draco complained. 'What's wrong with this place?'

'Oh, most everyone's sex mad round here,' the cat said.

'Well, I'm not.'

'Really?'

'Really!'

'I think you might be, Draco. I think you want cock as much as I do. But whose cock do you want? That's the question.'

'Whose cock do you want?' Draco spat back angrily.

The dreamy expression left the cat's eyes and a sad one replaced it. 'Cedric,' it said. 'I just want Cedric back.' Then its eyes filled with tears which ran down the fur on its face in a most ugly way. 'Cedric.'

Draco was alarmed to see that the cat's tail had stopped swishing against the branch and that – indeed – the cat had no tail at all anymore. He tried to let it know that fact, but it wouldn't stop crying so he couldn't. Then he saw that its bottom had gone too. So I don't suppose it matters about the cock anymore, because you've got nowhere to put it anyway . Then the back legs faded slowly away. And all the while the cat was silently sobbing. Draco took a step back.

He wondered whether there was anything he could do to make things better. Only, he knew that he had never made anything better for anyone ever. The cat's body disappeared, and the tabard with it. Then the front legs went, and most of its face, until all that was left was its sad, downturned mouth.

Draco stumbled backwards until he hit his head on a tree, so he turned around before running again. In a very little time, he found himself in a clearing, and in the clearing – to his great surprise – he found a long table set with a feast. The benches running along each side of the table were mostly empty, but huddled at one end he saw two figures. When he got closer, he discovered that they were sitting as close as they could do to a teapot, and that in the teapot was a Dormouse reading a book.

Draco was feeling terribly thirsty by this time, so he asked, 'May I have a cup of tea?'

'No room!' declared the one with the long ears and the lightning-shaped scar between them.

'No room!' repeated the other one, who had a top hat balanced on top of his red hair.

'Nonsense!' said Draco. 'There's plenty of room.' He sat down in a huff beside the one with the hat.

'No cake,' said the hat-wearer. 'All of the cake is for me.'

'Bollocks!' Draco stuck his hand into the centre of a raspberry gateau and pulled out a handful of it, which he stuffed into his mouth.

It was delicious, but it made him more thirsty. The Wonderland trio gaped at him as he snatched the milk jug and drank deeply from it. The milk ran down his face.

'Excuse me,' said the Dormouse, closing the book on its paw to keep its place, 'but you seem to have made a bit of a mess of your tabard.'

Draco looked down. He was astonished to see that he was wearing one of those stupid tabards. His was green and silver, like the caterpillar's, and it had ten spades appliquéd down it in two neat columns. It was also covered in cream, cake crumbs and milk, just as the Dormouse had said. 'Know-it-all,' he muttered at her, before picking up a pile of cucumber sandwiches and ramming them all into his mouth.

'Gosh, that's a capacious mouth you have there,' commented the Dormouse.

'It's big, too,' said the hat-wearer.

Draco saw that the three of them were wearing red and gold tabards, although he hadn't noticed that before. The Hare had a huge, single heart in the centre of his. He pushed his glasses back up his nose. 'Tell us a story, Dormouse!' he said. 'The one where I save the world.'

The Dormouse picked up her book again and cleared her throat. Before she began to read, though, she asked Draco 'Would you like some more tea?'

'I haven't had any yet,' Draco complained. 'So how can I have more?' He didn't fancy it anymore, to be honest, not with her furry bottom in the pot, but he still thought it was rude that they hadn't given him any.

'Of course you can have more,' she said, 'you can't very well have less than nothing.'

'The story!' the Hare sang out.

So the Dormouse began to read:

' Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

Mr Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large moustache…

Draco didn't think it was a very interesting story, because there wasn't anything about him in it. 'Haven't you got Babbity Rabbity?' he asked, but he was hushed by everyone at the table. He got stuck into the feast instead.

' One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs Dursley's scream as she opened… The Dormouse droned on.

Draco shoved both of his hands into a pile of jam scones, only to find that there was another pair of hands on the plate.

'My scones!' the hatted one hissed.

'Mine,' Draco replied. 'Listen to the story, mad hatter.'

'Sex-Mad Hatter. In fact, Mr Sex-Mad Hatter to you.'

'Oh yeah?'

'Yeah.' The Hatter looked Draco straight in the eye and opened his mouth wide. It was very wide. It made Draco think rude thoughts. Then Mr Hatter scoffed three scones at once.

Draco grabbed up four scones and a chocolate biscuit. He probably should have been surprised at how easily he stuffed them all into his mouth at once, but he wasn't.

'Impressive,' the Hatter murmured. He reached for a sausage…

'You're not listening to the story about me!' the Hare complained. 'Nobody wants to see your sausage trick, Ron.'

'I do,' said the Dormouse.

'I'll stuff you into the teapot and put down the lid if you stop reading.'

'A pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors and they were in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins on brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses…'

Draco still hadn't heard anything about himself and the book looked to be half finished. It's nothing but a stupid kids' book he reassured himself.

The Hatter was pretending to be interested in the Dormouse's tale, but his eyes kept drifting to Draco. He mouthed something which looked like 'later' but Draco couldn't be sure.

Draco was feeling very full and a little bit sick now. He also had a stupid hard-on for no reason. He decided it was time to go. He brushed the food from his tabard as he stood and backed away.

'Ron snapped. Before Malfoy knew what was happening, Ron was on top of him, wrestling him to the ground. Neville hesitated, then clambered over the back of his seat to help…'

That poor Dormouse looked like she was going to fall asleep reading that stupid book. Serves her right , Draco scolded himself. There was no point in feeling sympathy for any of that lot. Nor anything else for any of them, either.

Draco walked backwards —once again bumping into a tree — with his eyes fixed on the Mad Hatter and the way he was sucking down a sausage while pretending to listen to the interminable novel. It didn't hurt terribly much to walk backwards into the tree. Still, Draco thought that it would serve him well to turn around and face the way he was going.

He noticed that one of the trees a little way off had a door in it. Curiouser and curiouser, he thought and headed towards it to investigate. When he got there he was pleased to find that the door was not locked. He looked behind him one more time at the mad tea party.

'…they were surprised at the grin that was spreading over his face. " They don't know we're not allowed to use magic at home. I'm going to have a lot of fun with Dudley this summer…"…'

Draco ducked down and went through the door, closing it behind him. He found himself in a beautiful rose garden full of green roses. A group of yellow-tabarded club cards were having a furious argument with some blue-tabarded diamonds and splashing red paint all over the place.

'I know I planted red ones!' protested the blonde, barefoot ten of diamonds. 'It must have been the Nargles which unbalanced the colours.'

'Just shut up and paint!' snapped the three of clubs. 'You know what the Queen will do to us if he sees green roses.'

'Too late!' howled the six of clubs.

All of them dropped their paintbrushes to the ground and fell down flat on their faces as a strange procession rounded the corner.

First came a pair of oversized sherbet lemons with legs and trumpets, to herald the approach of the Queen and King of hearts. A coterie of red-tabarded creatures surrounded them. The King was a slim, straight-backed witch with wire-framed spectacles and grey hair scraped up into a bun. The Queen also wore glasses; he had long, silver hair flowing down his back and a silver long beard. Something's not in the usual way of things here, Draco thought to himself. But I don't suppose it matters.

'Green!' the Queen denounced.

'Where, dear?' asked the King in a Scottish accent.

'That rose! Here are the culprits. Off with their heads and twenty hundred points from Hufflepuff!'

'That's a bit harsh,' Draco said.

The Queen turned his full, terrifying twinkle on Draco. 'And who are you?' he asked.

Draco was determined not to be cowed. He straightened his shoulders. 'I am Draco,' he said. 'Draco Malfoy.'

'And what manner of creature are you, Draco Malfoy?' asked the Queen.

'I'm a boy.'

'I think you're rather a Death Eating sort of a boy, Draco Malfoy. I think you're trying to kill me,' said the Queen. 'Spare the gardeners. I'm playing croquet with Mr Malfoy!'

'Croquet?' Draco asked. 'But I haven't played for years—'

'Are you refusing? Off with his head!' The Queen began to walk away. The Gryffindors edged towards Draco menacingly.

'No, no, I wasn't refusing at all,' Draco insisted.

'Come along, then. Spare the boy!' the Queen called airily as he marched away. "For now."

Draco scurried after him.

Behind a Whomping Willow was the croquet lawn. It was the strangest-looking croquet lawn Draco had ever seen. For a start, it was on a hill, which was going to make things rather tricky, and, for another thing, the balls were fluttering snitches and the hoops danced about on their tip toes. The game was already under way; a strange array of creatures and cards were hunched over all the way up the hill.

'Your mallet, Mr Malfoy.'

Draco turned round to find that the very short King of Diamonds was levitating a white peacock towards him.

'Erm, thank you Professor,' Draco managed before finding himself in an awkward tussle with the bird. He managed to get his arms round its body as it flapped and squawked, but when he looked out onto the lawn, he saw that the other players were holding their peacocks upside down.

He had just managed to get hold of the creature's legs and began to chase after a likely-looking snitch, when the earth lurched beneath him and he fell over. He looked up from his prone position on top of the protesting peacock, to see that the hill on which they were playing was now sloping in the opposite direction, and that one snitch was rolling obediently along the ground towards a hoop which took a couple of steps sideways in order to ensure that the snitch rolled through it.

'Yes!' The Queen shouted. 'One point to me!'

Draco struggled to his feet, spluttering in outrage. He was about to voice his anger at the Queen's cheating, when he spotted something white on the other side of the lawn. It was the White Rabbit! Draco forgot all about the game and dropped his peacock in order to hurry off after it.

'Where are you going?' demanded the King's sharp Scottish voice and Draco turned towards her for an instant only, but when he turned back the Rabbit had gone.

It had been a terrible day, full of awful people and all Draco had ever wanted was to catch up with that rabbit. It was all too much and he started to cry with rage. The King of Hearts was still interrogating him, but Draco didn't care. He'd had enough. He stamped his foot and he kicked the nearest hoop, which swore and kicked him back.

'What on earth are you doing?' demanded the Queen's strident voice. 'You're cheating Draco Malfoy! Off with—'

'That's ripe coming from you!' Draco screamed back. 'You're the biggest bloody cheat in the world, you sanctimonious, twinkle-eyed hypocrite!'

A hush fell over the other players. Draco looked around him and saw that all the strange creatures he had met since falling down the rabbit hole were there. There was the mouse dressed all in red and gold and holding a sword for a mallet, and there was the Dormouse with a thick book for a ball. The whole of the sobbing Cho-shire cat was visible, and she was asking Draco how he was doing. The March Hare was tapping at a snitch with a broom and beside him — once again doing something obscene with a sausage — was the Mad Hatter. The White Rabbit walked out from behind the Caterpillar and, for the first time, Draco saw its face. He knew that white rabbits often had red eyes, but didn't they usually have noses? There was something terrifyingly familiar about the thing he had been chasing all day.

The silence was broken by the Queen's shrill 'Off with his head!'. Pandemonium broke out. Draco felt himself being grabbed at by hands which came from everywhere. He was dragged along the ground. A chill ran through him. I really am going to die a virgin , he thought and his tears became tears of misery instead of ones of anger.

Through the kerfuffle he heard the Queen declaiming, 'Sentence first, trial second!' and 'Jam every other day!' and other such nonsense until finally he announced, 'I call on the accused: Draco Malfoy!'

Draco was thrust onto a seat and the crowd withdrew. Draco found that he was now in the centre of a Quidditch pitch. The pitch was empty apart from himself and the Queen, who stood facing him. The stands, however, were full of rapt spectators.

'Did you take the Dark Mark?' the Queen asked.

Draco tugged his cuffs down his forearms, even though he knew that nothing showed because he always made sure that nothing showed. His eyes scanned the stands for the White Rabbit, because the Rabbit knew; it was the Rabbit who had given him the Mark.

'Do you have orders to kill me?' asked the Queen.

The caterpillar knew too. He had forgotten about that. Where was the Duchess, his mother? She would protect him, even if he was an ungrateful little sneezing pig.

'Off with his head!' the Queen announced.

Draco put his face in his hands and whimpered, 'Sweet Merlin, I'm going to die. I'm going to die a virgin. Sweet Merlin!'

'Not necessarily,' said the Queen unexpectedly.

Draco's head snapped up. 'Really? I'm not going to die?'

'Oh yes, you're going to die. I said so, didn't I? But you don't necessarily have to be a virgin. Not if you don't want to.' The Queen leered at Draco.

Terrified, Draco crossed his legs and looked at the spectators. Surely not, not in front of all of these people?

The Queen continued. 'I wonder whether we can find a volunteer in the crowd to do the honours. One who fits your criteria, of course. Your choice, Draco.'

'I never wanted to kill you,' Draco muttered. 'I don't think I can do it anyway.'

But the Queen didn't hear him because he was pacing the pitch and calling into the stands, asking for a volunteer to deflower Draco.

How mortifying, and yet, I suppose, if it's the right man then it might not be so bad, Draco found himself thinking. He kept his head demurely lowered, but he peeked up through his lashes to see who would step forward.

There was a commotion high up in the stands and a figure in the red-and-gold section raised his hand. Draco couldn't contain his curiosity any longer. He looked up to see an unmistakeable character in a tall top hat pushing his way through the crowd.

He was surprised by how relieved he felt when he saw that the Mad Hatter was the volunteer. He'll be gentle and he'll look after me afterwards, he thought. And then, in a rush, another feeling surprised him. He's rather handsome these days, too. He's so tall and his fingers are long and strong.

All of a sudden, the Mad Hatter was beside Draco, looking at him quite shyly, and whispering, 'Shall I take you somewhere private to ravish you, Draco? Would you like to be on all-fours, or should we face each other? Will you ride me or will I thrust down into you?'

'Do you want to?' Draco whispered back. 'Do you really want to do that to me?'

When the Hatter nodded, Draco felt ten feet tall. When the Hatter took his hat off his ginger head so he could lean forward and kiss Draco behind it, Draco felt ten times taller than that, as though his head were in the clouds. And when they broke for air, Draco found that it really was. They were looking down at the pack of irate cards at their feet.

'Go on, then,' the Hatter said with a wink. 'You're bigger than them. You don't have to be a piece in their game.'

With that, he stepped out over the Quidditch stands, but Draco didn't have time to watch him go, because he could feel scratches on his legs as the characters below him tried to arrest him again. The White Rabbit had hold of one of his boots and was trying to drag it one way, while the Queen tried to haul it the other.

Draco kicked out. 'Leave me alone!' he yelled. Dozens of cards and animals went flying, but there were more of them still holding him. They swarmed. He fought back. 'You're nothing but a pack of cards!' he yelled as they flew at his face.

On his face. Scratches and flaps on his face. He opened his eyes. A scrap of parchment was flapping at his cheek. He lifted his head from the desk to sit upright and grabbed hold of it.

'Yes, Mr Malfoy?' Hagrid asked. 'Do you have the answer for us?'

'Screw', Theo hissed out of the corner of his mouth.

Shit! Was it that obvious? Draco checked the front of his robes for a bulge. Did the whole class know that he'd just dreamt about kissing — oh, hell! Had he really just dreamed about kissing him ?

'Which creature was I describing, Mr Malfoy?' Hagrid asked, a little impatiently.

'Screwt,' Theo repeated.

'Blast-ended screwt!' Draco blurted. While Hagrid got on with his next rambling description, Draco muttered his thanks to Theo, who summoned his parchment scrap back to him. It had 'wake up' written on it. Draco relaxed back into his seat.

It was a dream? Thank goodness for that , Draco told himself. But he wasn't altogether sure that it was good. His dream Wonderland had been weird, but at least there he hadn't had to find a way to carry out the Dark Lord's mission. He rubbed at his left arm to check that his sleeve hadn't ridden up as he slept. He still had Dumbledore to kill.

There had been compensations in Wonderland, too. One in particular. Draco looked round the class until he found that tall back topped with a red head but no top hat. Did I really dream about that? he asked himself. What did he say in the dream about games? It was going to be a tough year, but Draco thought he might have just found a distraction. Maybe there was a way that he wasn't going to die a virgin after all.