Chapter 2: A potion gone wrong
Head Boy Draco Malfoy was walking impatiently back and forth in the common room he shared with the Head Girl. He had been doing so for about 20 minutes now and was getting more and more stressed by the minute. The Head Girl, Hermione Granger, had been occupying the bathroom for more than half an hour now. Whatever took her so long? Draco needed to get ready as well. It was the morning after their return to Hogwarts and their first day of school as 7th years. Therefore Draco wanted to look as presentable as possible. He had just about lost his temper for real when finally the bathroom door opened. He looked up at Hermione to give her a piece of his mind but stopped at the sight of her. She was standing in the doorway with hot steam coming up from behind her. She had a white fluffy towel wrapped around her slender body that still seemed a little damp from the shower and her wet brown hair fell down delicately around her face, framing her shocked expression and wide eyes as she looked back at him. She looked stunning and Draco almost forgot what he was going to say. He must've looked ridiculous.
"Oh." She said in surprise. She probably hadn't expected him to be right outside of the bathroom.
"Uh…" Draco was scrambling around in his head to find something to say. "Finally! Seriously, I know you're a mudblood and all but can't you have some respect for other people?" He hissed. "I need to use the bathroom as well!" Nice comeback, Draco! The look of surprise in Hermione's face changed into an annoyed glare.
"Well you could've just knocked and asked politely for me to hurry up a little." She said and clenched her fists.
"Like hell I'd need to be polite to the likes of you." He snarled and walked past her into the bathroom, catching the scent of her newly showered body as he did so. When he'd closed the door behind him he could hear her irritated groan. He sighed to himself. She had it coming to her, right? She could've spent less time in the bathroom and gotten dressed before heading out. Draco's heart pounded like crazy at the memory of how she'd looked. Why did she have this effect on him?
After a quick shower and some grooming, Draco rushed out of the bathroom and up to his bedroom. He was in a hurry to get down to the great hall. Damn Mudblood!
X-x-X
Hermione was furious. She had decided to try and be a bit nice to her new roommate. At least she had figured that showing him some politeness might cure his never ending rude behavior towards her, at least here, in their dorm. Why couldn't he at least have knocked?
She dried her hair quickly and smoothed it out as much as possible with a beauty spell. It worked pretty well to be honest as her hair now fell down in smooth curls rather than a bushy mess. She then grabbed her school uniform and put it on as neatly as possible. She heard someone rushing out of the bathroom and into the room next to hers. Malfoy seemed to be done in the showers. Impressive speed, yes?
Hermione gave herself one last look in the mirror, smiling at her reflection before heading down for breakfast in the great hall. She usually smiled at her mirror image every morning as to give herself some kind of positive boost for the day. It was an old habit… When she came down to the great hall she met up with her Gryffindor friends. Harry and Ron fussed about missing her in the common room and Ginny wanted all the details about Hermione's dorm. She explained the design of it to her friend, promising to let her see it someday. When Ginny asked her about Malfoy, Hermione just shrugged and shook it off. After all, they hadn't really been seeing each other that much yet.
Professor McGonagall went around the Gryffindor table, giving out schedules to all the students. When Hermione received her own, she got very depressed… First lesson of the week was double Potions together with the Slytherins and with their all-time favorite teacher Professor Snape. Harry and Ron had similar reactions as her, Harry sighing loudly and Ron shrieking quietly. Well, at least they were in it together.
Or so they thought…
"Today you will be working with a random person of my choice." Snape's intimidating voice sounded from the front of the class as he swept into the room, black robes swirling behind him.
The class responded with loud groans and sighs and Hermione almost died a bit inside at this. She had nothing against working on her own or with someone nice, but knowing Snape, that would not be the case.
"Neville Longbottom and Gregory Goyle" Small giggles were heard in the classroom as this was a very bad pairing. Hermione gave Neville a sad smile as to comfort him. Random my ass, she thought as Snape continued.
"Ronald Weasley and Blaise Zabini" Ron paled and gave Harry a look of pure horror.
"Lavender Brown and Vincent Crabbe" Lavender groaned loudly, showing how much she did NOT want this.
"Seamus Finnigan and Millicent Bulstrode"
"Harry Potter and Theodore Nott" Oddly enough Harry almost seemed a bit relieved.
"Dean Thomas and Pansy Parkinson" Pug-face Pansy snorted in a very rude manner.
"Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy, fitting as the two of them will have to work together for the rest of the year." Snape said and his eyes seemed to meet Hermione's with a glint of pure evil in them. Draco didn't say a thing.
Hermione was in some kind of undead state for the rest of the sorting (that took some time since there were more Gryffindors than Slytherins) She barely noticed when Zabini walked up to her and crossed his arms.
"You're sitting in my chair, Granger." He said and looked from Hermione to Ron (who was sitting next to her) Harry had already gone off to sit with Nott. Hermione looked up at him and gave him a small glare before rising from her seat and walk over to Malfoy. He glared at her and dropped his books on the bench in between Goyle and Zabini. This lesson would not be a pleasant one…
"You are now 7th graders and therefore you are expected to be able to achieve excellent results in brewing even the most difficult of potions…" Snape started when everyone had taken their seats. "Some of you might be skilled…" His eyes swept over the classroom. "…or just stubborn enough to actually do so." His eyes met Hermione's and she felt herself blush. He didn't think Hermione was skilled eh?
"However most of you will fail miserably…" He then said and turned around to the blackboard.
Ron turned around and shared a silent "He's a nightmare" with her.
"Today you will brew an advanced 'body swap potion' together with your new partners and you will try it out in the end of the lesson." Snape said while he scribbled down the ingredients on the blackboard. He then turned around and started out across his students.
"You will have to drink the potion even though you fail, so I'm expecting you to be serious about it." He said with another glint of pure evil in his eyes when he glanced over at Neville. "Begin."
Hermione got up from her seat and walked over to the shelves to get the ingredients. Harry was there with her in an instant to comfort her a bit in getting Malfoy. When she turned around with the ingredients, Draco was still sitting in his chair, not doing anything productive. Instead he played a bit with his wand and talked to Blaise. Hermione sighed and walked over to them.
"Why thanks a lot for taking out the cauldron and lighting the fire Draco! You're so helpful!" Hermione said and took the cauldron out herself. Draco laughed a bit together with Blaise and lit the fire with a flick of his wand.
"You're welcome, Hermione." He said.
"So, at least you'll be able to pass today Draco." Blaise said and wiggled his eyebrows at Hermione.
"I would even if I didn't have to work with the know-it-all mudblood!" Draco hissed.
"I'm sure you would, take these and slice them carefully with your silver blade." Hermione said and gave Draco the dried snake tongues. Draco looked at her with a baffled expression at first but took the knife and started slicing.
"Good job Drake, you're being such an obedient partner. I can really see why Dumbledore choose you two as heads." Blaise teased and turned his attention to Ron who was glaring daggers at him.
Draco seemed really annoyed for the rest of the lesson so Hermione tried to keep as quiet as possible, except when she gave him orders. He did as he was told anyway and turned out to be less annoying to work with than she'd thought. Probably because he kept his mouth shut… At the end of the lesson their potion had turned a lovely shade of blue and was now finished. Hermione was relieved she'd managed to make a good potion, especially since they'd have to drink it. Snape strode by and looked down into the cauldron. He looked at Draco and gave an approving nod before giving them each a goblet.
"But your DNA in the potion now and drink one small mouthful of the potion to swap bodies for one minute." Snape said.
Hermione pulled one single brown hair from her head and Draco one of his blonde ones. They then looked at each other with distaste before dropping their hairs into the potion. It sizzled a bit before once again returning to normal. They took a little of the potion in their goblets and put it to their mouths, but then, when the two of them were going to drink their potion a big explosion and Neville's shriek was heard from behind them before they were showered with a thick, hot and disgusting liquid. Both Draco and Hermione coughed and spat and screamed. All of Neville and Goyle's potion had sprayed over the two head students after some kind of horrible mistake made by the two boys. Hermione quickly cleaned herself off and spun around.
"WHAT was that? What did you two DO?" She shrieked.
"I-I'm sorry Hermione! I think dropped my pen in the potion, that's why it exploded... I think…" Neville stammered and looked really sad. Goyle just stared at the cauldron like an idiot.
"GET THIS STUFF OFF OF ME THIS VERY INSTANT!" Draco yelled and spat. He'd dropped his wand and was unable to clean himself. Before Hermione got to it however, Snape had cleaned Draco with an aggressive flick of his wand and a death glare fixed on Neville.
"Twenty points from Gryffindor for this horrible excuse of a potion." Snape said and turned around. "Dismissed for today."
The students quickly cleaned off everything and practically ran out of the classroom. Hermione met up with Harry and Ron outside of the classroom. They looked just as exhausted and displeased as she felt.
"I take it your lesson was just as good as mine then?" Hermione asked when she saw Ron's sour expression.
"Worse…" He said and looked away.
"Ron, Hermione had to work with Malfoy AND got an entire cauldron of potion over her." Harry said with an amused laughter.
"At least that resulted in us not having to drink the potion, right?" Hermione said and put her hands to her hips. "It was pretty close though."
"Didn't you get some of Neville's potion on your mouth? Seemed like it since you spat like crazy." Lavender asked as she walked by. Her amused tone irritated Hermione.
"I did… but as you said, I spat it out and if there would have been any effects of the potion they would have been apparent already." Hermione said with an annoyed tone. Lavender giggled and rolled her eyes before leaving them behind.
"So why did your lesson suck so much Ron?" Harry asked after a few moments of silence. Ron looked at him and then at Hermione with a neutral expression.
"Zabini's got a bad mouth." Ron mumbled and looked away, making it very clear they would not be able to make him say anything else.
Instead they started talking about the new teacher in Defense of the dark arts who had been presented to them yesterday during the feast and quickly forgot about the horrible first lesson. Well, at least Harry and Ron seemed to have forgotten it, Hermione however still felt tired and irritated. The day was practically destroyed for Hermione now. It had been a very good way to loose motivation for studies… But Hermione Granger was one of the best students the school had ever seen so of course she'd keep holding her head high, answer questions and take notes all day even though she'd much rather just sleep, forever. During dinner she was starting to feel really tired and a bit nauseous. Somehow this day was taking a bigger toll on her than she'd ever imagined.
"… And the potion looked more like tar than a body-swap potion!"
Lavender was retelling the story from this morning for the 100th time today and Hermione had to concentrate very hard not to yell for her to shut up. The Gryffindors sitting nearby laughed and patted Hermione's shoulder jokingly.
"Leave her alone you guys? Can't you see Hermione's not feeling very well?" Ginny suddenly snapped and glared at Lavender. God bless Ginny…
"Thank you Ginny, if you don't mind I think I'll go back to my dorm now. I don't know why but I'm exhausted." Hermione smiled weakly at Ginny.
"Of course not, goodnight 'Mione!" Ginny said and waved her off. Ron and Harry didn't notice her going because they were busy talking about something else with a 5th year Hermione didn't know the name of. Not that she cared, she just wanted to sleep.
X-x-X
Draco yawned loudly and rubbed one of his eyes discretely so that no one would notice his moment of weakness during dinner. Somehow he'd been feeling really tired all day, ever since he had to work with mudblood Granger during potions his health had been questionable. She'd probably infected him with some kind of mudblood germs. He smiled at the thought which were just plain stupid, but it was true that he was feeling rather bad and that he suspected her being the reason for it.
"How are you doing Drake?" Blaise teased and put the glass of pumpkin juice to his mouth.
"I'm doing fine." Draco said coldly and suppressed another yawn.
"Aaaaw I don't believe you Drakie! You look a little pale hun." Pansy said and touched his forhead. Draco shook her off with a glare.
"Come on Pans, Draco always looks pale…" Blaise said and snickered.
"I'll go up to my dorm now." Draco said through gritted teeth and rose from his seat quickly. He didn't have the energy for his friends right now.
He hurried out of the dining hall, ignoring Pansy's whining about him not having eaten enough food and started walking up the stair towards the head's dorm. He coughed a bit and rubbed his eyes again. What was this about? Draco was never sick, it was absurd.
He finally reached the dorm and mumbled the horrible password to the horse in the painting. He promised himself never EVER to let Hermione choose password EVER again. Damn Gryffindor mudblood… When he got inside Hermione was sitting in the sofa with her head buried in her hands. She seemed just as worn out as Draco. He KNEW it, she'd infected him!
"So YOU'RE the reason I've been feeling of today, Granger." Draco hissed at her.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." She said and looked up at him with tired eyes.
"Obviously you're sick, that's what I mean." Draco said awkwardly.
Hermione didn't look at him again; she just sighed, got up from her seat in the sofa and walked straight up to her room without saying anything. Draco was left glaring at the closed door that said "H.G" for almost a minute before realizing he was feeling really faint. He needed sleep, NOW.
He somehow managed to brush his teeth, get into his room and change out of his clothes before collapsing onto his bed. The last thing he managed to think before falling into a deep and dream free slumber was that something was horribly wrong.
And man was he right…
X-x-X
A/N: 2nd chap up, huhuhu! I know, this one might be a bit lame but the action starts in the next one. You probably already see where this is going eh? Yeah, and it's gonna be good!
Review please! :D
