This fic is a gift for the lovely I_Was_BOTWP. Thank you for always being there with your vast knowledge and your amazing alpha and beta powers! A lot of our fics wouldn't be what they are without you 💚💚💚.

All my thanks to HeartOfAspen for alphaing and betaing and listening to my constant whining while I wrote this riddikulus fic in 2 days ;). Without you, it wouldn't have been possible! *hearts* Any remaining mistakes are my own, as I tend to make last second changes. Big hugs to Weestarmeggie17 for explaining some details of the British schooling system to me! Without her, all the Brits reading this fic would facepalm right in the first paragraph ;).

Last, but not least, a Big Thank You to skyeverly who prompted the original line quoted the summary for the first time in an old prompts list from H&V. It was hilarious and so inspirational!

This story was cross-posted from AO3, where you also can find the fitting aesthetic. My penname there is sarena.

Disclaimer: All rights belong to JK Rowling and her publishers. I just borrow the characters and the world for a bit; the plot (as little as there is) is mine, though. This is a non-profit work, and no copyright infringement is intended.


The room was teeming.

She'd expected that, of course, considering that it was Saturday night and the marks for the mock N.E.W.T.s earlier that week had just come out. Not that any of their friends would take those results as a sign that they should work harder on their marks. No, she'd had the library to herself the whole evening.

Dragging her mind back to the issue at hand, Hermione blinked her eyes a couple of times, but the scene didn't change. She tried pinching her arm as well, to the same effect: nothing changed. Recapitulating her choice of dinner and if anyone could've tampered with her drink, she came up empty again. A headache started to pound against the insides of her skull.

Bottles were strewn over every surface, and some had not been empty when they'd fallen over. She scrunched her nose at the stench of spilled beer and other beverages. Music was blaring so loudly that her headache began to align to the staccato of the techno beat. That, at least, could be remedied with a swish of her wand, which reduced the obnoxious noise to tolerable levels.

And on top of that, there were the black and white figures occupying the room. They were everywhere, like wild flobberworms on the loose, invading any free space possible to invade. Hermione's eyes flicked up to the warded door of her room, and found that the stairs leading up to the dais were fully crowded, too. Merlin help Malfoy if the door had not still been closed.

Swivelling her head back to the chaos in the centre of their shared quarters, she spotted the prat. He must have just stood back up from picking something off the floor, if the bottles between his fingers were any indication. She clenched her jaw; this was intolerable.

"Malfoy," she seethed, "why in Merlin's name is our common room full of penguins?"

He whipped around to face her and made a couple of unsteady steps. Barely repressing the emerging snarl in her throat, she tried to figure out if the animals were hindering his processing or if he was just that drunk.

"Oh, hey, Granger. You're back already." His hand was on its way to rake through his already disheveled hair when he noticed he was still holding the bottles. He winced and looked at an uncharacteristic loss before his mouth twisted up on one side in a lopsided grin.

Hermione started to tap her foot, an action ruined by the thick rug on the floor. A rug which would be covered by penguin poo, sooner or later. Flattening her lips into a thin line, she tried to nail Malfoy on the spot with her signature glare, despite the exuberant movements all across the room.

She could have sworn the figures in the middle of the room were moving in an outrageous penguin-adaptation of techno dancing. They were in rhythm with the bumping music, at least. Another one of the animals was climbing up their floral-patterned—a print she'd insisted on since the standard tartan one had been a menace to her eyes, thank you very much—sofa, just to be followed by three more. They wiggled on their stomachs, preening after they'd made it onto the cushion. One of them cocked its head at Hermione, and she had the very fleeting impression of intelligence.

Malfoy flapped his arms, effectively pulling her view back to him. Unsure if he was mocking her by mimicking their unlikely guests' movements, or if he was in fact helpless, her eyes narrowed into slits. "What's the meaning of this?"

Unimpressed by her ire, he placed the bottles on their low tea table and weaved through the penguins until he stood in front of her. His breath confirmed it; he was smelling like five firewhisky distilleries. In a surprise move which make her squeak a little, he planted his hands on her waist and turned her 180 degrees around. Her heart fluttered a little when he didn't remove his sure grip.

"Nothing, Granger. There's nothing to see."

"Nonsense!" she exclaimed. She squirmed and tried to twist back around, but he moved closer and blocked her body with his stupidly hard chest. Beneath all that odour of half-processed alcohol floating around the room and on him, he also smelled like oranges and cedar.

"No, really, Granger. Our common room is practically empty." His eyes crossed a little when they flicked between hers. It made her dizzy to try and keep up with them. Meanwhile, pleasant warmth spread from where his thumbs had started to draw circles on her hips.

She cleared her throat. "The penguins, Malfoy. Where did they come from? Why are they here? How do you plan to get rid of them? A zoo. We'll need a zoo. But which zoo is going to adopt—"

She tried again to move him around, so she could see into the room again, but he stood steadier than his inebriation should allow. Maybe that was a perk of broom riding. Steadiness. Sturdiness. Stamina. Damn, she wanted to ride him.

Scolding herself internally for getting so easily distracted, she rambled on, "How many penguins are there? Thirty?" She tried to stare holes into his chest, but her attention was caught by his half-undone tie and the first two buttons of his shirt open. There were no suspicious reddish stains on his collar either. She swallowed against the dryness in her throat and craned her neck to catch his eyes.

"Hm?" Licking his lips, he glanced at her mouth.

Ears heating up, she swatted his chest with both palms. "The pen-gu-ins! Malfoy. Focus!" Her hands seemed to have found a comfortable home on his pectorals, so she left them there.

His glance turned into a stare at her lips. "Am focused." Maybe she had a crumb of the biscuits she'd had in the library on her? She brushed her tongue over her bottom lip and saw his pupils widen. As his hands wandered to the top of her bum, her cheeks warmed up. She shifted on her feet, but not much. The feeling was too nice to pull away.

"Malfoy," she breathed.

"Hm?" He began to crab-walk her to the staircase, his hands moving further down her bum and squeezing it lightly.

In spite of getting used to the idea of being touchy-cozy with Malfoy like this, preferably without any layer of fabric separating them, she couldn't ignore her current foremost concern. The one besides birth control, that is. "The penguins."

"What penguins?" Tilting his head, he leaned down a fraction, his nose almost grazing hers.

Getting a bit weak in the knees, Hermione let out a shuddering exhale. She stretched a little to meet him, but then she noticed a change. The sudden silence washed over her, and reflexively, she pushed at his chest to gain some distance from his luscious lips. And his powerful pectorals. And she liked his amazing arms, too, since she'd seen the toned muscles and pronounced veins that one evening after his shower. Not even to mention the massage her arse was receiving, making her all tingly between her thighs.

Malfoy growled as he looked over her shoulder. Her swift turn within the cage of his arms caught him unaware, and instead of her bum, his hands were now on her upper thighs, just next to the apex of them. But she didn't really register, because for all the sexual tension which had just built up between them, thirty—or how many ever there were—penguins were now staring at them.

"Why are they looking at us, Malfoy?"

"You voyeuristic perverts, I'll—"

Hermione cut him off with an unaimed movement above her head to try and place her hand on his mouth. She wasn't sure if the soft resistance was one of his eyes or a nostril, and opted to ignore his grunt.

One of the animals had a red, flat bag in its beak. She carefully drew closer to it, pulling Malfoy behind her as he refused to let go, and took the item. The penguin had a scar on its forehead which reminded her of something. Her brain, however, was too busy processing Malfoy's heat on her back, not to mention the soft rubbing movements his hands were making. She was about to overheat, she was sure.

WWW's funny animal friends, the package said. Just add a few crumbs to any drink or food, and watch hilarity unfold. Fun guaranteed!*

Hermione searched all sides of the packaging for the legend to *, and found it in the smallest small print in the bottom. Wears off after a few hours. Duration might vary depending on age and weight. We promise! No suing necessary.

Hermione chewed on the inside of her cheek. "They are our—? How did that happen? Why are you still human? Did you poison them all?!"

Angry chatter answered her words as the penguins started to creep closer, and Malfoy shot a glare at the gaggle of birds. "Yep. Pretty much the complete eighth year." He started to count off with his fingers. "I don' know. Prank gone awry?" Counting off the third finger, he continued, "Good Malfoy heritage." The prat had the audacity to look smug at that, but then his face fell. "Or the mandatory resistance building against poisons during sixth and seventh year. A Slytherin mandatory class." He looked uneasy below the veil of drunken bliss. "But am positive that it was your explosive house mate. He looked suspicious."

Before she could retort, "every Gryffindor looks suspicious to you, Malfoy," he tightened his embrace and nosed her neck below her ear.

She felt more heat pool in her core, and rubbed her arse against the stiff part in his trousers. She hoped it wasn't a broomhandle, or something else big, hard and handle-shaped. But if his grunt was anything to go by, that was not the case.

The scarry penguin, and its neighbor with the tint of red in its feathers, waddled up to them and pecked Malfoy's hand, hard, each on one side.

"Ow!" Malfoy yelled, snatching his hands back and whimpering behind Hermione.

The rest of the students-cum-animals cackled, some even slapping their flippers on the backs of the two attackers or giving them the penguin-equivalent of a high five.

She pinched her lips. "That was uncalled for, what I-assume-to-be-Harry-and-Ron!"

Then she squinted at the red package still in her hand.

"I have an idea, but I need everyone to come down here and gather in the living room." She gestured to the ones on the dais, who seemed to be reluctant to leave their vantage spot, and ushered the penguins out of the kitchen. "This should do the trick," she said, flourishing her wand around the excitedly bouncing students.

A smug grin played her lips as she added another swirl. The chatter turned angry within a few seconds, but by that time, she'd already gripped Malfoy's hand and took a step towards her private room.

"You confined them," he said, tugging on her hand to turn her back to him. The smirk on his face wasn't able to hide his toothy grin. Placing one hand on her hip to pull her closer, he stroked the other over the side of her neck and buried it in her curls.

"I also turned the rug into litter." She cocked her eyebrow.

If she wasn't mistaken, the cacophony behind her had acquired a screeching quality. Served them right for leaving her alone in the library!

Balancing on her tiptoes, she barely touched his lips with hers. He sighed and she almost got second-hand drunk at the cloud of alcohol. "I've got a sober-up potion in my room. And then I could show you my Chocolate Frogs Card collection, if you're—" she ground her hips against his, gratified that it had the wanted effect, or maybe it had never worn off, "—up for it."

He fisted her hair and kissed her. The penguin noises changed from chattering to gagging, which she graciously ignored, as she plunged her tongue into his mouth. His moan was muffled by their kiss, while she grappled at his shoulders; after a couple of minutes, they both came up for some much-needed air.

With a final wink to the pair of penguins which probably were her closest friends, she steered Malfoy up the stairs.

Thank Merlin for her two-way silencing charms.


I dare you to look at the aesthetic at the beginning again. LOL.

But most importantly, I solemnly swear that no penguins were hurt in the making of this fic. Hope you enjoyed it! ;)

Please let me know what you think! Praise and constructive criticism are very welcome :). If you find a mistake, please don't hesitate to contact me on tumblr: o0sarena0o and I'll try to fix it as soon as I can.