Chapter 7

A/N: Just to warn you... It seems I'm not capable of writing much other than fluff at the moment, but if you wanted something serious, I think you would have given up on this story by now.

I'm all moved in now, it's all very exciting. Classes don't start until next week though, so I don't really have all that much to do this week.

Anyone else thinks the planet has started it's retaliation for all the crap we've been doing to it for the past few centuries? *hiding* I'm officially afraid to watch the weather network, it's all forest fires, floods, earthquakes, mud/rock slides and hurricanes at the moment.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed! Thanks to Carrie as well for the suggestion, but I had already written this chapter when you sent it. I'm actually almost finished chapter 10, and I'm not sure if I'm nearing the end. I think this story might reach 30 000!

~Frosty

"You've gone too far this time Malfoy!" Harry yelled as he ran into the head's common room waving a pineapple around. Draco started laughing the second he caught sight of the fruit.

"And what, pray tell, are you about to blame me for – falsely, might I add?" he asked the angry Gryffindor.

"RON! Ron's a pineapple!" Harry roared as he sat his unfortunate friend down on the kitchen table.

Hermione wandered into the room to investigate the noise and looked at the boys gathered around a pineapple she was for some reason sure was Ron. "I always pictured him as something more in the melon family," she said to Draco, who nodded thoughtfully.

"You know, I think you're right," Draco told her, waving his wand and turning the Weasley into a cantaloupe. Hermione nodded in approval and left again, not bothering to get involved this time.

"What have you done to her?" Harry demanded, unable to believe that his uptight friend was just going to let this go on; she should have at least gave them all a thorough scolding on why it was wrong to transfigure your friends into fruit.

"I haven't done anything; she's just lightened up a little."

He contemplated Harry for a second before waving his wand and turning the other boy into a pineapple. "Weasley's not much of a pineapple, but you make a pretty good one, Potter," he told the pineapple as he arranged them artfully in the center of the table.

"You know you're going to have to change them back soon, don't you?" Hermione asked him from where she was leaning in the doorway of her bedroom. Draco looked up at her from the first floor and grinned mischievously at her.

"What'll you give me in exchange for your friends back?" Draco asked her slyly.

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling; those two idiots got them in this mess and now she was supposed to get them out of it? "What do you want?" She asked in exasperation.

"How about a date?" She frowned; that didn't exactly sound horrible.

"Fine," she told him like she was doing him some huge favour. Draco grinned at her – he knew she was playing down the fact that she actually wanted to go. "Now change them back," she ordered, causing Draco's smile to fall right off of his face.

"I'm a Slytherin, I'm not going to change them back until we've had our date," Draco declared – he wasn't worried that she wouldn't hold up her end of the deal, he just wanted Potter and the Weasel to have a taste of what it's like the be a fruit, no pun intended.

"All right, but it's going to be today then," Draco nodded; that was a reasonable request, and doable.

He came back a few minutes later with his broom slung over his shoulder. "You're not going to do something sadistic like take me flying even though you know it terrifies me just so you're the only thing I'll have to cling onto for safety, are you?" Hermione asked the second she saw the broom.

"No... Not anymore."

"Good, because I would have insisted it go both ways. What's your biggest fear, Draco Malfoy?" She asked with an evil grin. Draco had no doubt that she would use it against him at some point, particularly if he mentioned taking her flying again.

He suddenly smirked. "Does that mean you want me to cling to you for safety?"

"At the moment, near me isn't exactly a safe place for you to be," she told him, elbowing him in the ribs and glaring.

Draco held his ribs and backed away, trying to think of something that wouldn't result in a new bruise.

Hermione watched him with amusement as he tried to think of something that she would like.

"Okay, close your eyes Hermione," Draco ordered without coming out of his room. Hermione obeyed him, figuring that he had some sort of surprise in mind.

He had a surprise all right... As soon as her eyes were closed, Draco grabbed her around the waist and jumped out a window with her, getting the broom underneath them both at the last second. He skilfully pulled up on the broom, making sure Hermione was secure behind him.

Hermione was frozen in terror from the second her eyes had snapped open when she felt Draco jump. The only thing she could do was hold on to him for dear life and plot the murder she was going to commit the second her feet touched the ground.

"Relax, we're fine," Draco tried to soothe her when he began to lose feeling in his ribs because she was holding onto him so tightly.

"You're fine, if you fall off you can turn into your cute little owl that has wings, so you'll just fly away. If I fall, I'll be falling until I splat on the ground!" She screamed at him, holding on tighter when he turned the broom slightly.

"At least I've ensured that the clinging for safety happens," he muttered to himself, too quietly for his distraught passenger to hear.

"MALFOY! Land now!" Hermione yelled, squeezing him tighter for emphasis. He flinched, but ignored her; he had a destination in mind.

"TREES! Trees! There's trees below us, don't go down now, we're going to crash!" Hermione screamed, panicking as they headed towards a small clearing in the forbidden forest.

Draco landed softy and skilfully on the forest floor, successfully manoeuvring around the few tree branches that crossed the sky above the clearing. Hermione was much the same as she was when she was changed into a four year old – she refused to let go, even when Draco told her they were on the ground.

"Hermione, you can let go now," Draco said, amused that she was being such a baby about a little flying – she had been perfectly safe, he had been in complete control of the broom the entire time.

Hermione hesitantly cracked open one eye, seeing that the ground was in fact only a few centimetres below her feet, she threw herself off the broom and whipped out her wand, pointing it at Draco.

"Give me one reason not to stupefy you and leave you here for what you just did!" She yelled at him.

Draco looked at their surroundings. "Because you have no idea how to get back to the castle without me?" He tried.

It became apparent that he had chosen the wrong answer when Hermione conjured a flock of canaries to chase him around the clearing. "Okay!" He shouted as he ran around the clearing with his arms over his head. "I'm sorry, all right?" Draco wasn't pleased that she had gotten an apology out of him; it was something he rarely did and almost never meant. It was also seen as a sign of weakness in many circles.

Hermione wasn't exactly happy, but seeing Draco run around from a few small birds had cheered her considerably. "Are you ready to see what I brought you here to see?" He demanded when he was sure there were no more feathered missiles on the way.

She shrugged. "I guess", she told him with an air of nonchalance.

Draco frowned at her; she was supposed to be overwhelmed with gratitude to even be spending time in his presence, not launching things at him. He didn't tell her this though, he suspected she would either laugh at him or try and kill him for saying it.

He led the way a short distance in the forest, earning himself a smile when he held the branches out of Hermione's way as she walked behind him. "Okay, be quiet," he whispered as they approached their destination.

Hermione actually started to get excited about where they were going, now that the adrenaline rush had started to wear off. What could he possibly have to show her here in the middle of the forbidden forest?

Hermione ducked under the last tree branch and came out in a much smaller clearing, almost walking into the suddenly still form of Draco. "What is it?" She whispered, as she peeked around him.

Hermione gasped. Sitting in front of her was a creature that resembled a cat. It had white fur with orange speckles and a lion-like tail with an orange puff of fur at the end. It was adorable, but the litter of kittens sleeping around it were even more adorable.

"They're Kneazles," she whispered in wonder; she had never seen an actual full Kneazle, Crookshanks was as close as she had ever been to one, and he was only half-Kneazle.

The mother Kneazle blinked her eyes sleepily and looked around her little clearing to see what had disturbed her from her rest.

When she caught sight of Draco, she stood up and trotted over, purring. Draco smiled and reached down to her when she started twining around his legs. The kittens trotted over behind their mother and joined her in purring at Draco. He sat down and was immediately swarmed in the tiny, furry animals.

"Come on, sit down," Draco told Hermione, looking up at her from the ground.

She hesitantly came over and joined him, watching as the kittens became a little weary of her and hid behind him. The mother Kneazle came over and sniffed the hand Hermione offered her.

At the meow from their mother, the kittens came trotting over to swarm Hermione as well. Draco watched her fondly as she laughed with delight while the tiny Kneazles batted at strands of her hair that fell close to them.

"I thought Kneazles were an excellent judge of character," she told him, not looking away from the adorable kittens.

He looked confused. "They are," he told her, she was the know-it-all, wasn't she supposed to know these things?

"Well then why do they like you?"

Draco chuckled. "You like me; you put more faith in a glorified cat than in yourself?" The mother cat, who had been in Draco's lap the entire time swatted at him for that comment, but her heart wasn't in it.

Hermione laughed again at their antics. "How did you find these guys?" She asked as she affectionately messed up the fur on the head of one of the kittens.

"One winter night in third year I was wandering along the edge of the forbidden forest because I couldn't sleep, and I found this pathetic little bundle of fur that was shivering and meowing pathetically, so I brought it inside with me and got it some food." He stared off into space as he told his story, petting the mother Kneazle the whole time.

"Then when that sad little bundle of fur was warm and fed, she came and slept at the foot of my bed. You have no idea how much Blaise laughed at me for that one... Being followed around by a kitten, like I was its foster mother or something." Hermione giggled a little bit at that, Blaise seemed to do an awful lot of laughing at Draco.

"Then in the spring when she was big enough to fend for herself, I brought her back out to the forest where I found her and set her free again. I still visit her every now and then when Blaise is too distracted to notice I'm gone and make fun of me for it," he motioned to the Kneazle in his lap. "Now that she's all grown up, it's her turn to take care of little balls of fluff."

Hermione started laughing, "You pretend to be all Malfoy-like, but you're actually just a big softie, aren't you?"

Draco scowled, but a kitten chose that moment to launch itself at his arm and climb up it to his shoulder, where it sat and smugly surveyed it's siblings below it. Hermione looked from the kitten to Draco's scowl until his face softened; it was hard to look menacing with a kitten perched awkwardly on your shoulder.

There was a sudden sound from somewhere else in the forest. All of the Kneazles looked up before running up a tree, the mother stopping to meow a warning at Draco. He was up and on his feet, pulling Hermione behind him before she had even had a chance to process what had happened.

"Run!" he yelled, pushing her in front of him and glancing nervously at the sky; it was starting to get dark - dark was a bad thing. Hermione was bewildered as to why one little twig snapping was causing the whole forest to freak out, but she figured Draco knew what he was doing and let him lead her towards safety.

They got to the broom and in the air just as a very large spider burst out of the trees. "An Acromantula," Hermione said quietly; glad that they had gotten to safety in time, and then surprised that she had just thought of a broom as safety.

"Their population's out of control this year," Draco yelled back to her as they gained altitude and sped over the forest. She tightened her grip on him as the broom ride started to feel less safe and more like the accident-waiting- to-happen it was.

Hermione was exceedingly grateful when the castle came back into view, but she had to close her eyes when it came time for Draco to carefully fly them back through the window he had jumped out of.

"Hermione!" Ginny screeched at her the second she was firmly inside and on the ground again.

"What's wrong, Ginny?" She asked, still a little shaky from the flight.

"Have you seen Harry and Ron? No one's seen them for hours," the redhead looked on the verge of panic, she was obviously too worried about them to wonder why Hermione had just flown through a window on the back of Draco's broom.

Hermione walked over to the table her friends were resting on and looked over at Draco pointedly. He rolled his eyes to the ceiling, but waved his wand towards to fruity Gryffindors on the table.

Ron was curled up into a ball, looking as much like a melon as was humanly possible. The pineapple however, remained a pineapple.

Draco tried the spell again, looking a little annoyed that his wand work had been faulty. He started to look a little bit alarmed when his third attempt didn't work. He looked over to Hermione, "I don't think this pineapple is Potter," he told her.

Hermione started to panic; years of narrowly avoiding death and she was going to be the end of Harry! Forget Voldemort, he was in serious danger of someone eating him, or chopping him up and cooking him on a ham, or, or... whatever else people did with pineapples!