Disclaimer: Once I get in touch with a competent thief... But I suppose chances of getting it from the thief are just as good as getting it from Rowling.
"What do you mean barefoot?"
"Just that, Ronald. There is no possible way to modify shoes to fit on your chicken feet!"
"Chicken! Chicken! I am NOT a bloody chicken!"
"You can't prove that. We don't know what any of us really are anymore except your brothers!"
"I am -not- a chicken! I'm an owl, or a hawk, or... Or... I'm just NOT a chicken!"
"It doesn't matter what you are, Ron! You can't wear shoes!" Hermione was about ten seconds away from hexing the chicken-boy. She turned, catching sight of Ginny who seemed to be having trouble walking on her modified shoes. "In fact, maybe none of us can wear them." She looked thoughtful.
Ginny nodded in agreement. "Its like a part of me is cut off with these things on my feet." Her thick tail caused her robes to sway as she unconsciously swung it from side to side. "I feel kind of lost." Admitting defeat, Ginny sat down on the floor and tugged off her shoes and socks. Standing once more, she no longer had any trouble walking around the infirmary floor.
"At least we've figured out that the best way to manage the tails is to not think about them." That was Fred. "And we all know Ron's a pigeon." He was intentionally steering the conversation back to annoying Ron.
Face turning a more violent shade of red than it had been after arguing with Hermione, Ron shook his fist at Fred. "Argh! Just you wait, tigertail! I'm going to lug you up into the air and drop you without a broom!"
The twins just laughed at the threat as they finished adjusting their robes. George was admiring himself in the mirror. "Why didn't we think to dye our hair ages ago, Gred? We look smashing with stripes."
Fred was too busy adjusting his tail to listen though.
"I look like an idiot." That was Harry, twisting this way and that to see how the Hogwarts robe fell around and between his wings... He tapped a foot, listening to the clipping sound. "And I feel like I'm wearing high heels."
Draco rolled his eyes. He had been silent since the house elves had arrived earlier and was probably only remaining because he didn't want to face the lunch crowd in the Great Hall alone. His arms were folded over his chest and he was openly sulking.
"Ha! I'd like to see you last a day in real high heels. Those things can be a bloody pain at first."
Everyone got a laugh out of that because it had been -George- to make that comment!
"All right gang, lets go frighten the kiddies..."
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"ROOOOOOAAAAAAR!"
The doors of the Great Hall burst open to the sound of a monstrous roar and two tiger striped terrors sprang into the room. It seemed that they had pounced straight from the doorway and landed atop two of the tables scattering dishes everywhere. Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs leaped from their seats, a couple of the first years screaming as their tables, the ones under the beastly assault of the twins, fell into carnage... Right up until Alicia Spinnet and Angelina Johnson recognized them and whacked them upside their heads.
Despite the hopes of the twins, they had been so active in their entrance that no one had even noticed their changes until they were rather forcibly stunned into temporary submission by two of the Gryffindor Chasers. Once they had stopped, leaning back and rubbing their bruised heads, several students stepped back in shock. The only sound was the clicking of heels as they assumed Professor McGonagall was coming over to bring the twins into line.
Their hopes were dashed as the altered Harry Potter click-clacked his way past the twins, drawing attention to his feet as people looked for high heels. He was followed by the relatively calm Hermione Granger, the faintly clicking Ron Weasley and the amused and bouncy Ginny Weasley to his normal seat at the Gryffindor table. With most of the student body's attention on the brave Gryffindors, no one noticed Draco slinking over to the Slytherin table. It was one of the rare times he was glad for the legendary Gryffindor bravery.
"Ten points from Gryffindor! Fred, George, clean up that mess." The stern voice of McGonagall from the head table broke the moment of stunned silence.
Grinning like idiots, the twins removed themselves from the tables and started cleaning up with flicks of their wands while annoyingly ignoring the questions now being sent to all six of them.
For their part, Ginny and the Trio made it clear they were going to eat before answering any questions and tucked in to their food... Mmm... Food. That was when the sheer desire to eat revealed further changes thanks to the potion.
Ginny ate normally, seeming to be the only one unaffected by the mishap.
Harry took a bite of his stew and spat it out with a disgusted look on his face. After much sampling, he found himself on a lunch diet of lettuce and apples.
Ron seemed to have developed a craving for the baked fish and was solely concentrating on that at the moment.
Hermione, Fred, George (once they had finished cleaning and seated themselves) and the still unnoticed Draco were sticking to anything with meat as if it had gone out of style.
The only thing that really shocked the students watching the transformed was that not a one of them bothered using any type of utensils when eating! While it wasn't uncommon for Ron, seeing someone like Hermione tearing into a hunk of meat in her hands with sharp fangs was more than a little unnerving for the others and Neville, whom she was sitting next to, slid a bit away from her with a nervous gulp.
"Hey, Malfoy... When did you get a muzzle?" The slow, dim witted, loud comment from Vincent Crabbe drew that little bit of attention to Draco that he had hoped to avoid as all of the students turned to stare...
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Explaining things ended up waiting until after dinner, as lunch had only revealed that the seven students had larger appetites than normal; though that could have just been the result of spending a couple days in the infirmary. The only real problem they encountered that afternoon was when George almost ate one of the mice during Transfiguration. Thankfully Lee Jordan was paying attention and stopped him in time.
The group of six Gryffindors and one disgruntled Slytherin lingered in the Great Hall after dinner that night to finally clue in the rest of the students. So, with a dramatic reenactment of the scene by the twins punctuated with the matter-of-facts from Hermione and the occasional self-promoting comment from Draco (that no one really believed except Crabbe and Goyle), the students eventually quit the Great Hall and went back to their common rooms. Of course just attempting to go to bed was suddenly filled with dangers.
-:-:In the seventh year Gryffindor boys dormitory...
"Ow! Get off my tail you prat! That hurts!"
"Well if you hadn't been crawling under your bed, it wouldn't have happened. What are you looking for anyway?" George peered down curiously at Fred, grinning as his twin tenderly ministered to the bruised appendage.
"I thought I heard a mouse and figured you might want a snack." Fred grinned wickedly at George only to be smacked upside the head with a pillow...
-:-:Meanwhile, two floors below the seventh year boys dorm...
"What was that spell Hermione told us to adjust our shirts again?" Ron asked as he held up his old Chudley Cannons tee.
"I don't think anyone would care if you just went and ripped the thing, Ron." Seamus mused almost thoughtfully as he looked at the old shirt Ron was displaying.
"Oy! You stop pickin' on the Cannons!"
Neville was more curious about... "So how are you two going to sleep with those big wings?"
"They could always curl up in a pile of blankets and tuck their heads under their wings." Seamus suddenly found Ron's Chudley Cannons shirt in his face. "Ew, do you ever wash this thing?"
And on the same level, not too incredibly far away where the fifth year girls slept...
"Oh my gosh, Hermione! You're like so buff! I bet you could totally stomp Malfoy's goons into the floor by yourself!" Lavender squealed with delight.
"Ow! Watch the decibels there!"
"Whatever it was that happened to you guys did absolutely nothing for your hair though."
"That's true, Parvati. Don't worry though, 'Mione! We'll help you manage those wild locks!" If anything, Lavender found a higher pitch than before.
While covering her ears in pain, Hermione growled softly. "Please! You're hurting my ears!" But it seemed that her dorm mates were no longer listening. Instead they seemed to be verbally designing a whole new wardrobe to show off the new catty attitude of the Gryffindor bookworm. "I'm serious here... I won't be held responsible if you two don't stop..."
-:-:One floor below...
Ginny was suddenly yoinked from her comfortable nest of blankets by the sounds of shrieks and snarls coming from above her head and she laughed softly to herself. Pulling a pillow over her head and going back to sleep while Hermione tortured her room mates.
-:-:Quite a bit away from the tower, in the cold damp dungeons of Hogwarts...
Snarling almost savagely, Draco shoved Pansy from his bed. "I told you that I didn't want you to touch me! Now get away before I find out if I'm capable of ripping your head off!"
Whimpering much like a mongrel mutt, Pansy fled the boys dorm as Draco pulled the curtains around his bed shut and curled up atop his blankets. He shivered slightly, feeling strangely alone and cold though the thought of being in the company of Parkinson or any of his dorm mates made him cringe.
"Stupid wolves..." He muttered, attempting to fall asleep.
A/N: I really don't like how this part turned out. But for the life of me I couldn't think of anything better and felt I needed filler material. Please don't hate me for abusing certain characters, aka Brown, Patil and Parkinson... It just seemed like the thing to do at the time. -winks- Oh yeah... I was originally going to have the first confrontation of the Hybrids with Umbridge into this chapter, but it occurred to me that while I've read fanfics with the character, I haven't actually read the fifth book and have no idea how to attempt to portray the evil woman. So I'm going to do some research and I'll have the toad in the next chapter. Promise.