Chapter Three: Doragon henkan (Dragon transformation)

Draco sat up, wishing the room would stop spinning. When it finally did, he took a look around him, wondering why he was in the hospital wing. Just then, Professor McGonagal bustled in and stopped short. She recovered quickly, however, and made her way over to the door on the other end of the room.

McGonagal stuck her head out the door and called, "Albus! He-she-oh hell, Draco- is awake!"

"Thank you, Minerva."

She pulled her head back into the room after this exchange. McGonagal gave Draco a strange, searching look, and opened her mouth as if to say something, but Dumbledore interrupted her by walking in.

"I know you want answers, Draco," the Headmaster came to stand at the foot of the bed, "If you will wait but a moment, the other professors should arrive, and we can begin."

The moment he stopped speaking, the door opened again, and Professors Snape, Trelawny, and Flitwick stalked, glided, and waddled in, respectively. They along with the two adults already there formed a semicircle around Draco's bed.

When no one spoke for a moment, McGonagal broke the silence, "I assume you know what has happened to you?" At her student's hesitant shake of the head, she sighed, "Well, can't expect you to have known. Very well, "she drew a deep breath, "Through some magical anomaly, of which we have yet to find the source, your genetic make-up has been meta-morphed into one that appears to correspond with that of the opposite sex."

Draco's face registered only the blank stare of the totally bewildered, and this was not something Snape was prepared to deal with on his prize student, "You've become a female!"

Panic quickly replaced the puzzlement as the full implications of that sunk in, "A GIRL!? You've got to be kidding me!"

Professor Flitwick shook his head, "It gets worse Draco, my bo-...Draco. We can't reverse it," the panic turned into horror, "You haven't been charmed or transfigured, so we can't find a spell to reverse this, and Professor Trelawny couldn't See anything pertaining to The only hope we had was in the fact that Professor Snape found traces of a potion in your saliva."

Draco brightened at that, but Snape also shook his head, "The traces I found were almost nonexistent. They were of no potion I'd ever seen before," Snape's eyes narrowed dangerously. "I have a suspicion that you ingested some of Longbottom's ....fiasco....from yesterday. If that is the case, I'm surprised it didn't kill you."

There was a moment of tense silence, until Dumbledore broke in, "I understand this is a major shock to your system, Draco. We'll give you a bit of time to yourself, shall we?"

The teachers shuffled out of the infirmary, leaving Draco still sitting up in bed, stunned. Draco looked down out dumb hope that it had all been a cruel nightmare, but no. Those things were still there.

Draco sighed heavily and they dared to jiggle. The motion drew forth a sneer, but it wasn't up to its full potential and didn't last very long. A curious look crossed Draco's face as the sun slowly crept up the bed sheet.

"I wonder if everything's changed?" some distant, repressed part of Draco's brain screamed that the answer to that question would not be pretty, but the sheet was lifted anyway.

It was abruptly pulled back down as an ear-piercing screech cut through the midmorning bustle. In the Great Hall, a first year Hufflepuff girl snickered into her juice, just imagining the cause of the shout. Her friend turned to her with a puzzled expression, so she decided to relate the tale of what she'd witnessed this morning on her way to the loo....

Disclaimer: Anything you don't recognize is mine!

A/N: This fic will span quite a few chapters-there are nine written (waiting for editing) already, and I'm not done yet. However, there may be a time when there is a bit of a gap between updates-while I have the basic outline done, I'm prone to severe cases of writer's block. Just a warning!