"As I´m here," Lucius pulled his bathrobe closer around his frame, "I´d like to be informed on the progress you´re making with the glue problem."
Flamel, who had been reveling in pride for having solved the animal problem, squared his shoulders. "I tried a counteragent yesterday. Unfortunately it turned out that Mr. Potter and Mr. Snape were allergic to an ingredient. And then Albus," he shot the headmaster an angry look, "decided to spike an allergy potion with a lemon drop, which caused the furry problem you witnessed."
The blond wizard sneered. "Why am I not surprised by the incompetence we witness at work here? Dumbledore, I never hid my objection to your appointment, but I guess this time you have done it. We´ll be rid of you quite soon. I´ll make sure to convene a meeting of the governors immediately."
"Do as you must, Lucius," the headmaster smiled benignly. "I´m sure the governors will be interested in why you deemed it fit to enter the school dressed in lingery. I´ll gladly provide my pensieve and memory to give them accurate information."
"Don´t forget to mention him threatening a helpless muggle," Mrs. Granger chimed in, smirking at Lucius who was rubbing the shoulder he had been hit on with his own walking stick.
"You wouldn´t dare!" cried the blond wizard. He glared daggers at Dumbledore, who held his gaze unblinkingly. The silk clad wizard yelped when he was hit by a spell from behind and his feather boa wound its way up from under his bathrobe. He turned on the spot and glared at Flamel. "You! Old coot!"
"I have been called worse, Sir," giggled Flamel. He sent another hex at the blond and the boa´s end lifted itself to tickle Lucius´s nose. The blond coughed and spit out tiny pink feathers.
"I´ll go! But you haven´t heard the last of me!" Lucius threw the boa back in a dramatic gesture. "Draco, I´d appreciate it if you refrained from getting into trouble at the crack of dawn!"
"Yes, Father," the blond boy fought to hide a smirk.
"Really, Malfoy," said Harry when Lucius had disappeared into the flames, "having seen your father, I´m no longer surprised you are such a drama queen."
"You won´t badmouth my father, Potter. I, at least, have one."
Harry stared at the blond angrily, but before the situation could escalate, Flamel intervened. "We really should concentrate on the glue problem."
"Did you try out nailpolish remover?" asked Mrs. Granger.
Flamel rolled his eyes. "It´s magical glue! It doesn´t respond to muggle nailpolish remover."
"Did you try it?" asked the muggle dentist.
"I don´t need to try it! I know my potions!"
"Did you try it?" insisted the woman.
"No!" shouted Flamel. "No! We didn´t try to solve a complicated potions problem with muggle nailpolish remover!"
"That´s quite stubborn of you," Mrs. Granger pointed out. "I happen to carry a small bottle with me." She held it out offeringly.
"For the last time, muggle! We don´t need your stuff!" spat the old alchemist.
Mrs. Granger sighed. "Hermione, I´ll give you the bottle. Just in case one of those guys will stop acting like a two year old." She handed the bottle to her daughter and then requested she and her husband be taken home.
"I´ll work on another antidote," promised Flamel. "I have an idea for an experiment with tomatoe leaves."
Snape and the boys thanked him and returned to their rooms, where they were greeted by the sight of Sirius Black working his way through stacks of essays.
The next few days passed fairly quietly, apart from several near fights between Snape and Sirius Black, but Harry and Draco had learned to intervene in time to avoid bloodshed.
Hermione visisted Harry frequently in the evenings under the pretence of helping him grade homework for Snape. Of course, nobody bought the excuse and more often than not she found a chair waiting for her beside Draco.
First, the blond felt awkward flirting with the girl while his head of house was attached to his neck, but Hermione was so witty and sweet that he soon threw caution to the wind and worked all his Malfoy charm on the Gryffindor. Who cared about blood status when he had finally found a girl clever enough to discuss advanced arithmancy with?
Usually, when the flirting got too heavy, Harry and Black would allow themselves to get absorbed into a discussion about interior decoration. It seemed that Black was planning to give his old family residence a new appearance, and Harry – much to his own surprise – could talk about carpet colours for hours.
This left Snape to his own devices. First the potions master didn´t know where to look and where to listen when Draco and the Granger girl exchanged shy kisses, but after some protests, the girl provided him with a book, which was charmed to turn the pages when they were touched with the nose.
It was in one of those sessions – the blond flirting with his new girlfriend, Snape reading, and Harry discussing the benefits of camel hair carpets – that Dumbledore and Flamel entered the three wizards´ quarters.
"I have another draught for you!" Flamel cried triumphantly, "and I´m quite confident it will solve the problem!"
"What is in it?" asked Snape. "We don´t need another allergy fiasco!"
Flamel frowned. "How many allergies does the average wizard have? There´s no sage in it."
"Whom do you call average?" Snape snarled and Harry drew up to his full height beside him. "You will give me a list of the ingredients! Now!"
The alchemist looked ready to kill, but handed over a sheet of parchment.
Snape sneered. "Frog spawn? Tomatoe leaves? Camomille? – Kids´ stuff! You don´t really expect this to solve our problem?"
"That´s the elegance behind it!" cried Flamel. "I´m not surprised a botcher like you can´t understand it!"
"Botcher?" roared Snape. He shot to his feet, dragging the boys with him. Hermione yelped when Draco bumped his chin on her nose. "So far you´ve done nothing – nothing! – to solve this situation. Your every effort did nothing but complicate matters. No sooner you were here did you make matters worse!"
"Oh, and you solved the problem in a jiffy!" Flamel spat back. "You´re merely allowing a house elf to help you relieve yourself because you enjoy its touch!"
"Take that back, you vile old man!" shouted Snape, spit flying from his mouth.
"Professor! Do calm down!" cried Draco, rubbing his chin. "Why don´t we try Master Flamel´s brew and get it over with?"
"Get it over with? You ungrateful little boy! For weeks have I been abandoning my own experiments in favour for researching ways to undo your mistake! That´s it! I´m done!" Flamel threw his arms in the air and stomped out of the room.
Dumbledore shot the three wizards an angry look before he hurried after his old friend, trying to convince him to stay.
"Well," asked Draco, "who will try it?"
"Why don´t you try what the old coot came up with?" Harry folded his arms in a gesture of refusal.
"Oh Draco!" piped Hermione. "That would be such an impressive thing to do!"
The blond smiled at the young witch and took a sip of the potion, never breaking eye contact.
"So impressive!" cried the girl. Her admiring coo turned into a shriek.
"What?" cried Draco, his face a mask of fear. "What?" But Hermione just continued screaming instead of telling the boy what was wrong. At last Sirius Black took pity and conjured a mirror for Draco.
The blond joined his new girlfriend´s outcries of horror and panic.
"Really, Malfoy, a bit more decorum!" sneered Snape. A smile played around the potions master´s lips.
"Decorum?" the blond´s voice went up another pitch. "I look... I look... I look like her!" He pointed at Hermione accusingly. And really, where the blond hair had been a silky veil minutes ago it was now a nearly white bush of small wiry curls.
"And that is a bad thing?" glared Hermione, abandoning her shrieking immediately.
"Yes!" Draco cried, his voice still full of panic. "It took me years to get my hair silky and shiny and now it´s ruined. Look at me!"
"So my hairstyle is awful?"
"It´s okay for you, since you never wore them differently, but I´m Draco Malfoy! People expect me to look good!"
The blond cried out in pain when Hermione´s hand collided with his cheek painfully. "I can´t believe I kissed a vain little peacock like you! You slimy creature!" The girl left the spot by Draco´s side in a hurry, wiping her face with her sleeve.
"But Hermione! There´s nothing wrong with one of us being beautiful," Draco pointed out helplessly.
"You better shut it Draco, or she´ll hex you," Harry suggested calmly.
The blond obeyed without delay. Harry, after all, knew Hermione better than the blond.
"I think Miss Granger is no longer needed here," said the headmaster who had returned with Flamel in tow.
"Exactly," huffed the girl. "I´ll go find Ronald." She stomped out of the office.
"Do you feel any changes where you´re connected?" Flamel asked Snape and Draco. "Some curls would be a small price for freedom, wouldn´t they?"
"There is no change," snapped Snape. For emphasize he shook Draco a bit. The blond´s new curls wobbled to and fro.
"Pity," mused the alchemist.
"You ruined my hair for nothing!" snarled the blond. "Father will hear of it! Mark my words!"
"Not Lucius again," sighed Snape. The headmaster and Flamel´s faces clearly told that they agreed. "Somebody get the pink shampoo bottle from my private bathroom for him."
It was strange to return to the bathroom in the middle of the day and watch Draco wash his hair. The blond made a fuss over the procedure one would think his change of hair style had been something life threatening.
"Are you sure this will remove the curls, Sir?" the boy asked, his voice sounding worried as he squeezed the bottle to pour some of the pink goo in his palm.
"Do you see me wear any curls?" Snape snarled impatiently.
"I never suspected your hair to be curly," Draco pointed out shyly and Harry agreed.
"That´s the point of using this potion. So that people don´t realise your hair is naturally curly."
Draco massaged the potion into his hair eagerly.
"Sir," said Potter watching Draco work on his locks, "as you are good with hair taming potions, do you know one that would take care of my unruly mop? I´ve tried everything, but no spell or time of combing could tame it."
Snape snorted. "You do realise that there is a difference between curls and that," he looked at Potter with disgust, "dead animal you´re wearing on your head."
The boy glared at the potions master angrily. "There´s no reason to insult me. I was politely asking for help."
Snape smiled maliciously. "I´m sorry, Mr. Potter. In that case I should help. The only spell I can think of to solve your hair problem is ´Calvus Totalis!´"
"Is there a special wand movement? Is it safe to cast it on oneself?"
"No and yes, Potter." The potions master´s eyes twinkled with glee, but the Gryffindor was not aware of it. Eagerly, he pointed his wand at his hair and cast the spell. As soon as the tickling sensation of the spell was over, the wizarding hero turned to look into the mirror.
"Snape!" he roared when his reflexion stared back at him, bald. He tried to hit the potions master, but the latter held the smaller wizard at arm´s length easily. When he was unable to reach the man, Potter pointed his wand at the wizard and cast the spell again.
Snape ducked and the spell ricocheted off the tiles and hit Draco, who had been massaging his scalp. When the young Slytherin felt his hair fall from between his fingers, he screamed. By the time Dumbledore, Flamel and Sirius Black, who had all been waiting for the three wizards in the living room (Black had convinced Dumbledore and Flamel to help him with the essays he had been correcting when the others arrived), arrived at the bathroom, Harry had cast the spell for a third time, this time hitting Snape square in the chest.
"I knew this would happen!" cursed Flamel, using some words not fit to be repeated on this site. "Those three are so full of various potions, nobody can tell how they will interact. We are lucky only their HAIR fell off."
Harry and Draco covered what they thought Flamel was talking about with their hands and Snape looked as if he had liked to do that, too, but of course he wasn´t able to with his hands stuck to the boys´ necks.
"I strongly recommend to not use any more potions on those three for at least a month," stated Flamel. "This," he pointed at the bald wizards, "clearly shows it´s not safe. And I mean no potions at all. Somebody get them muggle shower gel, muggle tooth paste, muggle anything."
"I´ll go and ask the Grangers," said Dumbledore.
"But this was caused by a spell! A simple hair growing tonic would solve the problem!" protested Snape.
"You heard Master Flamel," the headmaster said sternly. "No potions for a month. And to be safe, you will not teach for the duration of your potions abstinence either."
"Not teach? But the exams! My students need their lessons."
"I'm confident I will be able to convince Horace to help us out for a little longer," Dumbledore promised. "You´ll excuse me. I have several firecalls to make."
"And I will go back to my experiments. With a little luck I´ll have the remedy for your problem by the time it´s safe for you to take potions again." Flamel patted Snape on the head before he left.
As soon as the two old wizards had left, Black burst out laughing. "You look fabulous!" he roared.
"Do we?" Harry replied maliciously. He pointed his wand at his godfather.
"Ten points to Gryffindor," smirked Snape.
It was probably the first time in history – Hogwarts or otherwise – that two Slytherins protected a Gryffindor against a fellow lion, but protect Harry Potter they did. Draco pointed his wand straight at his cousin´s nose when the older wizard attacked. Snape, unable to use his hands, did the usual and tried to kick at his schoolday nemesis.
"You shouldn´t have laughed at us, cousin," sneered Draco.
The only answer he got was an outraged cry and a new attack.
"Stop the ridiculous behaviour, Black! It doesn´t become you," Snape smirked.
"Become me?" shrieked Black. "Harry, you may be my godson, and heaven knows I love you like my own child, but I will kill you for costing me my hair! – Remove that wand from my face, boy, before you take an eye out by mistake!" The man growled at Draco, but the blond was not distracted.
"Step back!" the former blond ordered, "or I´ll take points from Gryffindor!"