A/N: In case you're completely hopeless when it comes to French, the title means "The Beauty and the Bad Boy" and refers to Hermione and Draco. It is also the title of a song by M.C. Solaar.
Hermione was bored. She had finished making her potion, and had even finished the rest of her Transfiguration assignment. Meanwhile, all the other students labored on, trying to finish up their Polyjuice Potions. After all, she had managed to make the potion in second year, so making it again in seventh year had been a piece of cake. Hermione sighed for what she felt was the thousandth time, and several nearby students sent curious glances her way.
Snape was not only having them brew the potion, but he had also told them that they would have to drink the potion as well. He had plucked from the head of each student a single strand of hair. He put each strand in a tiny bottle and distributed them randomly so that the strands could be added to the students' potions. Hermione got the feeling that he was doing this not only because the potion was NEWT level, but because he also wanted to wreak havoc.
"Hey. Hermione." Ron was leaning slightly towards her, whispering out of the corner of his mouth. "How do you cut the lacewings?" A shadow fell over Ron's desk, and the boy looked up to see Snape.
"Did I not make myself clear when I said 'No talking'? Twenty points from Gryffindor for not following instructions! And Miss Granger, move over there so Weasley can work on his own potion without distraction."
Hermione got up and moved her things to where Snape had pointed. Her new seat, unfortunately, was right next to Draco, and Hermione was immensely embarrassed to have to sit so close to him; she had been avoiding him ever since The Kiss. But Draco didn't even glance up from his cauldron, and Hermione couldn't help but feel stung by his refusal to acknowledge her. The rest of the class was silent. When Snape told them to bottle and label their potions, they did so. The students filed out of the room, several of them wondering aloud whose hair they got and who they would be turned into next class.
Draco stayed a few steps behind Hermione and when the students started to disperse to go to their next classes, he grabbed her arm and pulled her into an empty nearby room.
"Draco! What are you doing? You're going to make me late for my next class!"
"Forget about class, okay? I just wanted to talk to you about-"
"Oh, don't even say it! I'm already embarrassed enough by! I even apologized to you, you could have at least said it was okay, or told me not to do it again, or that you don't like me in that way, and that would have been fi-"
Her rambling was cut off by Draco leaning in and kissing her on the lips.
"-fine." she murmured dazedly when he pulled away.
He smirked. "You'd better hurry to class. I'll see you later." He swaggered out of the room.
For the rest of the day, Hermione couldn't stop thinking about what had happened, and it seemed to her that the rest of the day floated by dreamily. Before she knew it, it was the next day and she had somehow been transported into the dungeons where Potions class took place.
Snape handed out the bottles of Polyjuice Potion.
"When I call your name, you will proceed to the front of the class and drink your potion."
It was an interesting class, to say the least. Parvati turned into Dean. Neville turned into Cormac McLaggen. Ron morphed into Millicent Bulstrode, and Draco changed into Harry. Harry himself got turned into Lavender. Dean turned into Ron. Seamus, coincidentally, had been given his own hair and hence remained the same.
Hannah Abbot took Hermione's form, and Cormac took Draco's. So this is what I look like to everyone else, thought Hermione as she watched Hannah take her seat.
"Hermione Granger."
Hermione walked shakily to the front of the class and held her bottle of Polyjuice Potion to her lips. She took a deep breath then downed the liquid. For a moment she felt nothing, then her body started to tingle. Hermione closed her eyes, and when the tingling stopped she opened her eyes and looked down at herself.
Her skin was a smooth dark brown, and she saw that she had long straight black hair. She was taller too. She was Parvati. Definitely a lot better than being a giant cat.
She walked back to her seat and sat next to Draco/Harry. Ron/Millicent and Harry/Lavender turned to look back at her, sending her grins and a thumbs-up.
"You should all turn back to your regular selves after a couple of hours." said Snape at the end of class, his dark eyes lingering on Neville/Cormac.
In the corridors it was chaos. All the other students who hadn't had Potions yet knew about Snape's "experiment" but didn't know how to address the changed students exiting the classroom. The name "You!" seemed to be the word of choice, as calls of "You! In the blue sweater!" and "You! The one that looks like Draco!"(or whoever the other student was looking for) echoed throughout the halls. A student walking near Hermione called "You! The one that looks like Seamus Finnigan! Can you tell me who he turned into so I can find him?"
"I am Seamus." said Seamus.
"No you're not. Stop lying."
"I'm serious! I got my own hair!"
"Yeah, right."
Although Hermione was finding the exchange of words amusing, she interjected, "He really is Seamus." before continuing down the hall.
"Hey, Hermione!" Both Hermione and Hannah/Hermione turned around to see Draco/ Harry running down the corridor towards them.
"Not you, Hermione." he rolled his eyes at Hannah, then pointed at Hermione/ Parvati. "That Hermione!"
He caught up with her, and to her surprise he intertwined his hand with hers. She couldn't help feeling like she was holding hands with Harry as she took in his messy black hair and bright green eyes.
He leaned in and said in a low voice, "You have to patrol tonight, right? For Head duties?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Meet me at midnight in front of the doors of the Great Hall. Don't tell Weasley or Potter."
He fled before she could question him further. Why did he want to meet her? Why had he called Harry and Ron by their last names? She wanted to run after him, but was interrupted by the appearance of Ron/Millicent and Harry/Lavender. Ron/Millicent was whining loudly. "If I had to be a girl, why couldn't I have been a hot girl?" Harry shrugged. "Too bad for you, mate."
Ron glared. "Shut up. Just because you got to be Lavender...you'd better hope I don't get struck by the urge to snog her." Hermione laughed. "Ew! Don't even think about that, Ron!" Harry, who was now standing slightly behind Hermione and looking alarmed, said "Yeah. If you try to snog me, I'll hex you into next year."
"Yeah, well, I can just put you in a headlock! Millicent is stronger than Lavender."
Smiling and laughing, they continued off to what they knew would be a very confusing class.
The dark hallways loomed around Hermione, who was back to her regular self, as she walked quickly and quietly to the doors of the Great Hall. It was a couple of minutes before midnight. Hermione was listening for footsteps, ready with an excuse in case Filch caught her. She got to the doors and waited in the shadows, constantly looking and listening.
"Hey." Hermione jumped, her hand flying to her mouth to keep her from screaming. She whirled around but saw no one. Then she smiled.
"Draco, take that Invisibility Cloak off right now or I'll leave!"
"Fine." He appeared in front of her, his light skin looking ghostly white and his silver-blonde hair shining in the moonlight. "But we'll need to put it back on anyway." He pulled her to him and slipped the cloak over both of them. His hand rested on her shoulder, steering her and holding her close to him. They slipped out the front doors and walked across the grounds, stopping in front of the Whomping Willow. It was the first time since she got back that Hermione noticed that the tree was perfectly alive and well.
Draco picked up a long stick off the ground and, quick as lightning, he poked the knot at the base of the tree with it. The flailing branches froze, and the two slipped off the cloak and climbed over the branches. Draco pulled her into the passageway under the tree.
"Follow me. Lumos."
Hermione, of course, knew where the passage lead: the Shrieking Shack. What she didn't know was why Draco was taking her there in the middle of the night. Still, she had to trust him, so she pulled her wand out and muttered "Lumos" as well before taking his hand and letting him lead her further down the tunnel.