A/N: A little fic that just came to me while watching a certain scene in Howl's Moving Castle. The second I saw the scene, I knew I had to write it. Not a cross-over at all, so no need to have seen the movie.

Not mine, as usual, but I promise I didn't hurt him…really!

Please R+R.

A Hairy Tale

It was all Blaise's fault. Blaise had a tendency to borrow people's hair potions, as he never bothered to make any himself. Worse, he would often disguise this fact by filling the borrowed bottle back to its former level with whatever random potion was lying about at the time.

Now it was funny when it happened to the others in his dorm, but Draco wasn't pleased when it finally came his turn to deal with the fallout.

He'd still been half asleep when he'd grabbed his bottle and towel and moved towards the shower. And he hadn't thought to check to make sure it hadn't been tampered with. After all, surely Blaise wouldn't be so stupid as to use Draco Malfoy's hair potion. How wrong he'd been.

When he looked into the mirror, still drying his hair, at first he'd thought he was imagining the glimpses of red showing around his dark green towel. His horrified shriek when he'd pulled the towel away had drawn every boy still in the dorms to the bathroom. When Blaise came into view, Draco was shaking with rage, and Vince and Greg had been the only ones able to stop laughing long enough to keep him from killing the dark-haired boy.

"I look like a Weasley!" Draco howled at the top of his voice. "How can I possibly go out into the school looking like this? You'd better not try to sleep tonight, Zabini, because god help you if you do," he hissed. He ripped himself away from his cohorts and flung himself from the room, glowering at anyone who so much as snickered.

Snape came to find him sometime before lunch, a small bottle quickly proffered to his favourite student before he spoke a word. Draco downed the potion, and hurried to the mirror, sighing in relief as the red seemed to bleed from his hair.

"I trust you will be keeping your potions locked up from now on, Draco?" Snape said placidly. "Unless you want to try living as a Weasley for some reason…"

"Hardly," Draco sneered. "Thank you, sir."

Snape nodded, and that evening, when everyone saw his hair had returned to its usual silver blond, no more was said of the matter.

Until the next time Blaise "borrowed" his hair potion—and Draco's hair turned black.

Fin