Dang, I'm evil. Well, here it is. Christmas/ Hanukkah/ Festivus present for y'all.
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Heh…I'm really evil.
"SNAPE!" Ron roared to an empty boys dormitory. Harry quieted him immediately, but Ron was still fuming. "Snape? Of all the people Prof. Malfoy choses to sleep with, that has to be the wor-"
"Come on, Ron, what Professor Malfoy chooses to do with her free time is none of our business. And while I do think Professor Snape was not the wisest of choices, it was not entirely her choice, either." Hermione added rationally. "Perhaps he was nicer when he was younger."
"Yeah, and maybe owls don't fly." Ron added sarcastically. "Exactly what parts are we playing in this madcap scheme, anyway?"
"She didn't say." Harry said, shrugging. Hermione shook her head.
"Well, she'll tell us when she wants to. Probably not for another several days."
An owl's beak rapping at the window silenced the conversation, and Harry got up to let the bird in.
"Hermione, it's for you." He untied the letter and the bird flew off. "Evidently no reply requested."
Hermione slit open the envelope with her finger and read the note quickly. "Professor Malfoy wants to talk with me about my paper." She read, her face a mask of confusion.
"Mighty short days, Herm." Ron said sarcastically, grabbing his bag to go do homework in the common room.
Ron was not spared a visit to Professor Malfoy's office- he got called down after dinner, the professor citing something about his grades. Hermione refused to talk about what she was doing, and Ron seemed sullen after getting his news.
"Hermione's older brother. Harry, I-" Ron looked down at his feet. "I can't do this! Act like her brother for an entire two weeks! You know how much I like her!"
Harry stopped, struggling to keep a straight face. "No, Ron, actually, I don't. This is the first I've heard of it." He smiled at his friend, who proceeded to tackle him.
"You great oaf, you've known all along!" Ron accused. Harry, already laughing so hard he couldn't breathe, could only nod.
"You're only…about…as obvious…as…" But Harry couldn't come up with a good enough analogy, and just left it there.
"Anteros Augustus Kier- what kind of a name is that?" Ron asked, a depressed note in his voice. Harry sat up.
"Kier?"
Ron nodded. "Yeah. So?"
But Harry was already rifling through his bag for the Defense against the Dark Arts textbook.
"Kier! I knew I'd heard the name somewhere- you're his son!" he pointed to the picture of Morrigan in the back of the textbook, nodding sagely in his frame and looking very wise indeed. Ron sighed.
Harry spent the last three weeks before vacation studying Algernon. He poured over photo albums, laughing at pictures of a prepubescent Draco and Algernon in swimming trunks next to the pool, or of various family members at family get-togethers. There was Gabrielin, and Lucius in quite a few, laughing with his sister, Narcissa pouting gloomily off to the side, hating not to be the supreme object of her husband's attention. There were a few pictures, though, of another young man who was also blonde and looked like Gabrielin, but she never told Harry who he was.
He was tutored on table manners, which fork to eat with first (a facet of his education the Dursleys had never bothered with, since it was assumed nice company for which more than one fork was set would never know Harry existed) he learned to dance, a rather painful task taken up by the combined efforts of Professor McGonagall, Mrs. Weasley, and Fleur, when she could get off of work to come to the school. Harry could see the tension between Mrs. Weasley and her first daughter in law was lessening, but it was still there in spades. In short, by the time winter break started, Harry was fit for the society pages.
"But are the society pages fit for you?" Ron asked irately, still nursing a hurt ego that Harry got to dance with Fleur and he didn't, never mind that the aforementioned was married to his brother.
"Ron, I-" Harry started his defense, but Ron threw a pillow at him and walked out. Harry's shoulders sagged. What was it that was turning all his friends away from him?
"He's sick of being in your shadow, that's all." Hermione said, helping Harry pack his trunk the next day. "Come on, no time for moping- you've got to meet Professor Malfoy's carriage."
"The Escape" as it was now being termed, was part of the elaborate hoax designed to make Draco think Algernon was still alive- alive enough, in fact, to have gotten off school early to come and fetch his mother and cousin from Hogwarts.
Harry would slip out into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom ("It's amazing how often we go in there" Ron remarked) take his Polyjuice potion, slip his invisibility cloak over his head, get out the front door, and make a mad dash for the carriage to meet Gabrielin and Draco there.
Harry glanced at the mirror of the bathroom, having changed into his slightly too big and much nicer than normal robes for his 'costume'. Historical pieces were coming back again, and Algernon, ever the well dressed elitist, was wearing a waistcoat and pants in the 19th century manner. Hermione was watching him. ("In case anything goes wrong, you never know with these expierimental potions.") Harry gave her a glance and uncorked the top of the green glass flask. The potion was still giving off steam. In one gulp, he downed it, steeling himself for the hot waxy flesh sensation of his body changing.
The first thing he saw was the mirror getting shorter- or him getting taller. His hair grew out, his chin became more angular, his hair got longer, oilier, his nose lengthened. His eyes changed shape, and color, not green anymore but the same blue as Gabrielin's, one of the only influences he could find of hers.
He turned to look at Hermione. She stepped back, her mouth a little open. "Har- Algernon."she corrected automatically. "You're gorgeous."
Harry looked in the mirror again. Whatever Hermione saw, he wasn't getting it. She shook her head, opening a black velvet bag with Gabrielin's crest embroidered on it, a snake wrapped around an arrow, it's head pointed at the moon.
She drew out a wand, ("Ebony, also elfhair, like Gabrielin's," Hermione commented, "See if it works." It did.) A heavy ring with a piece of onyx set between two rather hefty emeralds, and a pocketwatch, silver, with falling leaves etched into the cover. Hermione tucked the end of the fob chain in his buttonhole, slipping the watch in his vest pocket. She stood back to survey her work.
"You look very dashing." Hermione emphasized, while Harry mourned the fact that he was playing Snape's son in the mirror. He checked the watch, and in some corner of his brain, the twelve moving hands made sense to him, as thought the poly juice potion had given him Algernon's brains, too.
"We're going to be late if I don't hurry." Harry said, whipping on the invisibility cloak. Hermione nodded, pleased with herself at something.
Harry fairly ran down the empty corridors, invisible to everyone, except Mrs. Norris, whom he passed once. When he got to the more crowded part of the entrance hall, he slowed his pace, creeping around the fringes of the crowd to get to the open front doors. There was the carriage, drawn by- what type of horses were they? Draco was sure to ask- with the Malfoy family crest- the snake, rampant, much like the Slytherin one- sketched, unfaded, on the side.
The door opened of it's own accord, and Harry slipped inside, taking off the cloak and stashing it in a drawer under the seat. "Obfirmo." He whispered, tapping the wand to the drawer. It faintly glowed, and then remained still, locked tight. A new spell professor McGonagall had taught him to keep Draco out of his things.
From the other window, Harry could see Gabrielin, in a long green traveling cloak, Draco behind her, in his normal black. Behind them, a magical train of luggage- Draco's, for the large gothic D stenciled on their lids- followed. Harry stepped out of the carriage, smiling and going to greet his mother, whom he noted was now the slightest bit shorter than him.
"Mother!"
Gabrielin looked up, and she smiled. "Algernon!" she came up and hugged him, kissing him on the cheek. He noticed out of the corner of his eye Draco was giving him a funny look and passing girls were whispering and giggling behind their hands. Maybe Hermione was right, Harry thought to himself. His professor- now his mother- smiled at him as if making a joke. "You've gotten taller."
Harry laughed.
You know when I'm going to be really evil? Next chapter, when Harry has a house party and Draco looks for a little action and everybody plays Liars and Fools.