DMM CH.10

Next Day…

Hermione woke to the buzz of a preset alarm. She had set it the night before, just after getting ready for bed. The alarm was charmed to only be heard by the occupant of the bed. She thought it was a better idea than having it play out loud, since a cranky toddler was a VERY bad idea.

Remembering the reason for the special alarm, Hermione walked over to the, as she called him, Prince of Annoyance's, crib to see if she was needed. He was still asleep. Sighing with relief of having a few minutes to get herself ready, she then headed to the main bathroom.

………about 10 minutes after Hermione got into the shower………

Draco started to wake, though not entirely aware of where he was…again. Rolling over onto his back, he balled his fists and started rubbing his eyes. When he fully opened them, he was surprised to see little silver snakes and lions hanging over his head.

"Okay… what is that thing? Think Draco, you learned about these things in Muggle Studies. It started with an M. Motor? Mallet? Magnesium? No, those aren't it. It would have been mentioned in the furniture area. Oh, forget it." He reached up to grab it, and realized that he was a lot smaller than before.

"What happen_ Oh, right, toddler form." He put his arm down and sighed. Looking around, he recognized this room from when he was asleep before the other Gryffindors had shown up. The bed on the other side of the room was empty.

"She must be in the shower." He heard the running water, and nodded to himself. "Now what? I can't do much in this position, and probably even less since the pathetic mudblood is my 'so called' guardian."

Just then, the water turned off and the shower door opened. Footsteps were coming closer from the bathroom. Draco shut his eyes and pretended to be asleep. Hermione went back into the bedroom with a towel wrapped around her completely. He heard the chest drawers open and shut, then Hermione's steps back into the bathroom. The moment the door shut again, Draco's eyes popped open and he turned on his side, facing away from the door.

"That was close." He looked at the crib bars.

"I have got to get out of this thing, and there is no way that I am waiting for the Mudblood to get back and lay a hand on me." Draco thought.

He grabbed a hold of the bars and pulled himself (struggling with it) into the sitting position. "That was harder than necessary. I wonder how old I am physically. Must be about four months if I am able to sit up at least."

Looking around his crib, he saw a snake lying in the corner. It was at least a yard long, just long enough to reach the floor. "Thank you Madam Pomfrey. You just helped me in my escape from this situation without even realizing it."

After grabbing the snake, Draco then wrapped the tail around one of the bars of the crib, securing it with a double knot. Once that was done, he threw the pillow he had been sleeping on earlier over the bars and onto the floor, making sure he had some padding when he got out. Next, Draco started to climb the snake (harder than you think) all the way to the top of the crib bars, sitting there just long enough to flip the snake over to get down to the ground. With much difficulty, he shimmied down the snake and landed on the pillow, safe and sound.

"Now I'll see for myself exactly where I'll be living for… did they say how long the antidote would take? They probably did when I was glaring at Granger. Yah, that's it." Draco made his way over to the open bedroom door, crawling on all fours. Crawling down the main hallway, Draco looked through the few doors open. He saw only the small bathroom before a frantic set of footsteps could be heard.

Hermione finally finished with getting ready. Adding the final touch of light pink blush, she looked in the mirror and smiled. For once, her make-up wasn't turning against her in the morning. Usually it took a lot longer for it to agree to her wishes. Walking back into the bedroom, she stopped in her tracks. Across the room was an empty crib with a snake rope and pillow in front of it. Like most worried mothers would react, Hermione yelped, panicking and searching rapidly around the room. Not finding the missing toddler, she raced out the door to find said toddler on all fours in the hallway, staring at her agape. "This is not going to end well for me." The tiny Slytherin gulped.

By this point, if this had been a cartoon, there would be smoke coming out of Hermione's ears.

"Has he lost his mind as well as his height? What if he had hurt himself while trying to get out? Why didn't he just holler for me?" She practically sprinted to her little charge, barely stopping in time to not run him over. She scooped him up into her embrace, then pulled away to start one of her 'famous' lectures.

"Draco Malfoy! What on earth were you thinking when you climbed out of your crib?! There is a REASON for the bars! You could have injured yourself!" Hermione began. Draco, who had been quiet, was beginning to feel a tad queasy. In the middle of the rant, out of nowhere, Draco spit up on Hermione's shirt.

Hermione stopped talking completely, all words replaced with a silent screaming in her expression. Instead, she went back into the bedroom, placed Draco back into the crib, untied the snake and threw it on her bed, grabbed a new shirt from the drawers, and ran into the bathroom.

Draco sat back and witnessed the little scene. "She didn't yell or anything! She just stopped! This is good. I can use this new information." A smirk stretched across his face. "Just you wait, Granger. I plan on making the best out of this mishap, by making your near future with me a living hell."

NEUC