Happy birthday Sophie!

You, of course, had to have a story for your birthday. I started a bit late, but I hope you'll enjoy this strange fairytale fusion of a thing that I came up with. It's based on Disney's The Princess and the Frog and it'll end as Hermione/Draco/Harry. Enjoy!

Sophie, remember to tell Ellen (or to the unannitiacted: agentmoppet, drarry afficionato and seeker extrodinare) thank you, too, she beta'd the story, even though it was short notice.

The Girl, The Boy and The Ferret

Chapter 1
Words: 2 788

It's raining. It's raining because it's England and at least every third day you'll see rain here. It's not so bad most of the time. We've grown used to it. I carry an umbrella with me at all times and always wear shoes with thick rubber soles to allow me to walk through murky puddles unhindered.

My friend Harry doesn't seem to have come to the same understanding, though.

Now I'm being unfair. It's not his fault half of the time. His aunt and uncle always had him wearing his cousins cast offs, and now he still has the bad habit of wearing this trainers until they fall to pieces.

He is walking next to me, stooping to stay under my red umbrella. He's not doing it very well. His shoulder is on the outside, getting extra wet from the water that's sliding off the umbrella. I try to hold it a bit higher, yet that only ends with the wind grabbing on to it, and I have to hold tightly and pull it back down so that it's not ripped from my grip.

"I'll be on patrol duty all day tomorrow," Harry says, head bobbing a bit as he struggles to fit under cover.

I lengthen my steps, eager to get out of the rain, because today there is nothing enchanting about the rain, it's not a screen of privacy it's just a wet blanket that wants to give me a cold miserable embrace.

"With my back to the royal family of course" Harry continues. "I'll not be able to get a single glimpse as the equipages pass. Eyes on the crowd, Potter, that's what the chief says. We're to look out for trouble makers, not to swoon at the royals. You can do that in your off time."

Harry works as a constable with the London Police. He really wants to be a detective, or special forces or even forensics - anything that's more advanced than directing traffic or accepting reports of stolen bikes - but he didn't have the money to study long enough to qualify, and he didn't want to enlist in the army because he has a three year old godson who he has partial custody of. I know he's disappointed that he won't be able to see the royal family. His aunt and uncle, who raised him after his parents passed, are not nice people. They'd always cared more about the royal family than him, and somehow that worshipful attitude rubbed off on him.

It has always been royalty and fairy tales with him. Though only the former were because of his aunt and uncle, the other was in protest against them, which really made no sense. The Dursleys wanted the dream life and lived vicariously through the royal family and other nobility, but they drew the line as soon as fiction, stories, or magic was involved. Harry had gotten into everything magical in protest. He read everything from H.C. Andersen to J.R.R. Tolkien.

"Watch the rerun on TV," I tell him, getting ready to talk about it. It's a sacrifice as I can't be bothered with either royalty or fairytales. I don't care about happily-ever-afters or fancy ball gowns and tiaras. I care about making a difference, which I will do once I get my degree and a good internship.
"It's not the same! And what really bugs me is that I'll be right there. I mean, right there and I still won't get to see anything!"

"Whatever, Harry."

"Can't you at least pretend to be interested?"

"Oh, sure, I'm interested. I know that this other aristocratic family that you're obsessed with will be there: the Malfeys."

"Malfoys," Harry stresses the latter part of the name; then he shoves me lightly. "And you knew that. You never get names wrong."
He is right. I do remember that they are the Malfoys. Lucius. Narcissa. And Draco. Especially Draco. The way Harry goes on about them it would be impossible not to have their names and their entire biographies imprinted on my mind.

"I'll watch the rerun with you," I offer, feeling a little bit guilty for messing with him.

"Thanks, Hermione."

We reach the crossing where our paths must part. Harry is going to pick up his godson, and I am going to my parents' dental clinic where I work as a receptionist once my classes are out for the day. I'm studying law. I'm determined to be the best attorney in London. I'm not aiming low, I know that, but I also know that I can do it, even if it means that I have to work extra hard, and with my parents as my bosses on top of that, to make the funds go together.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Harry," I tell him. "Try to not get a cold, okay?"

"I'll try," he says. We both know that he'll be soaked before he makes it to his godson's day-care, and that the three year old is bound to get wet too before they make it home unless the weather clears. I think about offering him my umbrella - I only have about a block left to go - but before I can decide, he's crossed the street.

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"Do you have time to relax a bit tonight?" my mum asks as the clinic is closing down. She's seen to her last patient, and I can hear that my dad is finishing up with his last too.

"No," I say. "I have two hundred pages of reading to do before Friday."

"It's only Wednesday, and you're working too hard. You're never allowing yourself any rest."

I could have rolled my eyes. She was being hypocritical. She and dad spent most of their time working too. They had to if they wanted to keep the clinic. The address was expensive: central London, and there were only two of them to keep things running.

"I'm seeing the parade on TV with Harry tomorrow," I say as an explanation.
"Ah, Harry. And how is Harry?"

"He's well." I look up from the booking I've been changing and see her looking expectantly at me. "What?"

"Is there something going on between you two?"
"Harry and me? What? No. I don't think of him that way." That was a lie, at least partially.

Mostly I saw Harry as a friend. We've been friends a long time, but of course my mind had gone there once or twice. Okay, more often than that. He's handsome. It happened almost overnight with him, or over a summer: he went from scrawny kid to one of the school's most popular guys. Black hair that's perpetually messy and bright green eyes, straight nose, a nice smile - he's everything you could dream of. All the time he's spent working out to become a police officer hasn't hurt either. So, of course, I've looked, and, of course, I've thought about what it would be like if we were together, but I have my career to think of, and he's never tried anything, so I suppose he doesn't think of me that way.

"You should think about getting a boyfriend, Hermione," my mum says. "I don't want to pressure you, and you have all of your life ahead of you, but even if you're trying to reach your dreams, there's no fault in also living a bit in the moment."
"Sure," I say.

I can't help but think 'hypocrite, when was the last time you and dad actually spent some quality time together?', but I say nothing.

I help the patient that's leaving, close down the computer, grab my coat and umbrella, and head home, ready to read those 200 pages on commercial law.

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I sigh. The parade is finally over. As is the tedious dinner party that followed. It has been yet another in a long, long - actually, never-ending - row of similar events.

I take care to not let either of my parents or, god forbid, the Queen or one of the Princes hear my sigh. We are all in the same boat after all. It is duty, not pleasure, though I am quite certain that to my mother and father it is both in equal measure.

To me, it is only duty. It used to be more, but I've grown so bored with it. Most of my peers have had the chance to go out and see the world and mingle with the commoners. Not me. No, Malfoys do not do that. I have been told that we are too good to associate with people who could not trace their lineage back more than two generations, because what sort of heathens do not know their own history?

Maybe there is a point to it. I do enjoy knowing that my ancestors were important people during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and during all centuries since, but what impact does it really have on my life? None. That was the answer: it does not matter. As I have tea with another baron or count, it does not matter that Gregory Malfoy delayed the American Independence by five years or that Richard Malfoy played an important role in the war where England conquered Ireland.

"Bored out of your mind yet?" Theodore Nott comes up to me, hands behind his back, suit jacket straightened and tie tight around his neck. Basically, he looks like every other man in the room.
"Is it that obvious?" I ask.
"Not particularly. It just so happens that you complained to me for five weeks straight about having to attend. Call it an educated guess."

"Ah." He does have a point, as much as I hate to admit it. "Do you have a plan to save me from my misery?"

"I might have."

"Do tell."

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"I don't like this plan," I say.

"Shut up, Draco. You do like it."

He was right. I am enjoying myself, probably too much, and the decency my father has instilled in me is prompting me to protest. I should not like this, and saying that I don't might work to convince me that it's true. Or it might have if Theo had not ruined it.

We've snuck away. Not difficult when all the women are gathered together in one room, gossiping and all the men are smoking cigars and drinking brandy in another room. With both the smoke and the drink working to make their vision dim, walking away had been easy. No one would miss us until noon.

Going out into London, even with the rain and the car exhausts filling the air, I felt like I could finally breathe freely. Now, however, a different sort of smoke is filling my nose. Incense. Cinnamon and something musky. Perhaps also something floral, too light to be properly captured. Theo has taken me to the parlour of some mystic. I can hardly believe that people like this actually exist, and I can't believe that other people pay them money for their services. And now we are two of those people.

I don't know where to begin to describe the mystic Theo has taken me to. Mad Eyed Moody is what he is calling himself. I had pictured a woman, and as I see the person who will reveal our fates, I wish it was a woman draped in scarves and with too many beaded necklaces falling down her front.

This man looks insane. Completely and utterly insane, but also as if he, with cold reason, could kill both Theo and me. He has grey hair and a nose that looks like it has been chopped off at the tip. Scars pattern his cheeks, forehead and chin. The worst part is his eyes. One is... normal seems a bit kind, but yes, normal. The other is unnaturally large and of an electric blue colour. He also keeps licking his lips. He doesn't seem aware of it, as if it is a tic. One of my mother's sisters is like that.

"Sit down," he barks at us. And I have to call it a bark. It is a gruff, loud sound, as if rocks are grating against each other, and as if these rocks have a will, and that will would have them falling down to crush us if not obeyed.

After sharing a quick look, Theo and I sit down at a small round table opposite Mad Eye. He takes a deck of cards, blending them with nimble hands, hands that didn't look like they should be able to move that fast as more than one finger tip is missing.

"Pick three," he says, the harsh edge to his voice remaining. When we don't immediately comply, he seems to grow before our eyes, or at least his shadow does. It rises ominously behind him, and I quickly pick three cards, placing them down on the table, and Theo does the same. The light in the room turns back to normal. It is an impressive trick, but it's only a trick and I silently berate myself for falling for it.

Mad Eye looks at me, as if he knows what I'm thinking, and turns up the first card. What I see there has me thinking that Theo must have been planning to take me to this mystic for a long time. The illustration on the card isn't general; it's me. The child on the card is pale blond, and his chin is pointy. The man and the woman flanking him have to be my parents too.

"A privileged little brat, that's what you've been all your life."

My instincts tell me to be offended. No one is allowed to call me a brat, but Theo kicks me in the shin under the table, and I shut my mouth. I am enough of a man to take an insult. I am here to have fun. The insults and glowers of Mad Eye seem to be part of the show.

"You enjoyed your money and your easy life: the mansions, the balls, the clothes, and most of all, to lord it above everyone else." He turns over the second card. The picture on it clearly shows me too, older, the same age as I am now. The person in the picture isn't smiling, though, unlike the child on the first card. My parents are still there, yet now their shadows are casting me in darkness. "You're not happy anymore. Can't daddy's money buy you happiness?" Theo kicks me again. "Privilege isn't enough for the brat turned narcissistic bachelor. Feels like a cage? Like oppression? Well, brat..." he turns over the final card. It shows me once more; I'm not the least bit surprised. Now this picture of me, that's something worth having. I'm smiling, I'm standing at the top of the world, and my parents are nowhere to be seen. "Your future as I see it is different; you're free."

He pushes the card at me, and I look at it, not listening as he does the same run-through for Theo. Yes, I want to be like I am in that picture: free. Free to go around the world. To meet normal people or strange people, just people who I've never met before, who aren't all part of the same circle as my parents. People who cannot take one look at me and compare me to my father, tell me that I look like him and that I should be more like him. Once I wanted that. I wanted to be him. I don't anymore, but if I can't get away, I won't be able to be free.

"What do you say?" Mad Eye asks. "Do you want me to make your fortunes come true?"

I look at Theo. He's not quite meeting my eye. I can only see the back of the card he's holding, and I'm regretting not listening to what the mystic told him. It doesn't matter. It's not real, it can't be, because the cards must have been fixed in advance. I might as well go for it. I have nothing to lose.

Mad Eye is holding out his hand, waiting for me to shake it. I take the misshapen limb, letting my fingers be crushed for a moment, and Theo is shaking the man's left hand.

"Good, good," Mad Eye says, and the shadows are growing again. They are dancing on the walls, although there is nothing to cast them. My certainty that everything is faked is quickly disappearing. I can't understand what's happening. The card I'm holding has changed. The picture is not me, atop a globe anymore, free to traverse the world. It's a picture of a small, white, lean animal: a ferret.

End Chapter 1

A/N 20th June 2016

So, Sophie, it's only the first chapter you're getting today. You'll get more. I'll make it your gifts for all your accomplishments in the Quidditch League so I owe you at least two more chapters.

I tried a bit of a different style here, first person, presense. That tripped me up a bit as I wrote it. I hope nothing of third person, past tense remains...

I hope you liked it, do let me know, okay?

And that goes for everyone reading this, I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, or have something else to say, a review is a good way to let me know.