The next morning, Draco awoke in an unusually good mood. He decided to have a shower so he sprang out of bed, gathered up a few things and headed to the bathroom. Coming back to the dorm he very nearly walked straight into Harry Potter. "Potter? What were you doing in my dorm!" he exclaimed.
With a look of pure contempt, Harry shot back, "Now it's my dorm too, Malfoy."
Draco was about to get even when Alexas came bustling over. 'Oh great,' he thought, 'I'll bet she's about to harass me for abusing the wonderful hero that is Potter.'
Contrary to Draco's expectations, the target was not him, but Harry. "What do you mean it's your dorm now? You're not a prefect!"
Both boys were mildly shocked by this turn of events. "Dumbledore gave his permission." Harry mumbled.
But Alexas was in no way convinced. "This is the PREFECT common room. And you're not a prefect, so you shouldn't be in here." she maintained.
"Look," Harry said, his temper starting to bubble, "I'm as much of a leader of the school as you, prefect or not."
"For what!" she cried, throwing her hands up pleadingly. "Because you can catch the snitch! That doesn't make you special!"
"But I'm Harry POTTER!" Harry was now shouting in his frustration. (He really is easy to provoke, isn't he?)
Alexas calmly crossed her arms and said slyly, "And I thought you didn't like being famous." She leaned against the wall and sniggered as Harry threw his arms up in anger and stormed off, muttering about crazy girls.
Draco gave her an appraising look. Apparently, he wasn't the only one she enjoyed driving completely insane. It was good to see it happen to Potter too. "Nice." He said approvingly.
She looked back at him. "Thanks." She paused momentarily. "You're still a jerk." She stated and strolled off to her own dorm.
Draco shook his head in disbelief, and went up to put his things away. At breakfast, he was still determined to let nothing ruin his good mood. Not even Potter and McDougal. He was so focused on this that he barely heard the owls swoop in. He looked up just in time, as an owl he recognized as one of his father's dropped a letter on him narrowly managing to catch it before it fell onto his plate. He opened it apprehensively and began to read.
'Draco, the visit from your dear uncle has been postponed due to personal matters. You will now have to wait until the summer to see him. Be ready. If you are not, there will be dire consequences.'
He snorted in disgust and muttered under his breath, "How typical of him. Using 'uncle' as a code and ending with a threat." He threw the letter down on the ground and set fire to it with his wand, leaving a black mark. While glancing around to make sure no one had seen, he cleaned the mark up with the edge of his robes.
No longer hungry, he stood up and walked slowly out of the Hall. Without any sort of destination, he wandered aimlessly around the castle. 'So I've been given a reprieve. For now at least.' he thought glumly.
He looked around at his surroundings and worked out that he was only a couple of corridors away from the prefects' dorm. "As good a place as any, I suppose." When he turned the next corner, a first year saw him and took off. "Strange." he murmured, puzzled.
He walked through the door, only to see a sight all wizards dread. A circle of wands, all pointed directly at him.
Simultaneously all three of them raised their wands and cried, "Altercis adherius!" (Pronounced: all-ter-kiss add-hee-re-us)
Draco had no time to properly defend himself from this so he tried to dodge out of the way. But to no avail. The triple-strength spell hit him head on. Pulling out his wand and preparing to return fire he was stopped in his tracks as the entire common room erupted into riotous laughter.
Holding her stomach, still shaking with laughter, Alexas conjured up a mirror. What Draco saw there didn't make sense. It was him alright, but what had happened to his hair?
Alexas somehow managed to stop laughing just long enough to ask, "Okay, who did what? I made it pink. Who did the spikes?"
From the floor, Ron raised his hand and tried to say that it was him, but he couldn't make any kind of answer due to the guffaws that were raking his body.
"Oh yes," drawled Cliff. "I have always been rather partial to green."
And so it was Draco's hair was now a shade of shocking highlighter pink with bright green polka dots. To make matters worse, it was spiked up in random chunks. Gingerly, he raised one hand up to touch it. It felt like a rock. Tapping it even rendered a small hollow-sounding thunk.
Having no idea how to react to this, Draco simply walked up the stairs, went into the dorm, sat on his bed and closed the curtains. Only then did reality begin to sink in.
He tried everything he could think of that night. Pushing it down with his hands, gelling it down and even trying to tie it down with a scarf and stuff it under a hat. Nothing worked. At last, he completely ran out of ideas. There was no other remedy. At least tomorrow was a Sunday so he could go and see Madam Pomfrey and get her to do something about this.
So he collapsed on his bed and fell asleep to the sound of his three roommates still talking about his humiliation; his good mood officially and totally ruined.