My Beloved Ferret
by StopBlowingHolesInMyShips/Krystallia

AN: I know, it's pretty short, but I had writer's block and I had good ideas for chapter 5 so I kind of rushed this one C BUT DON'T WORRY I WILL RETURN WITH A NEW CHAPPIE LATER TODAY OR TOMORROW! D

Chapter Four
Ginny's Distress

"Hey, Hermione!" called Ginny cheerfully as she entered the seventh-year girl's dormitory. "I have to come show you my pet ferret!"

"A ferret?" Hermione looked up in interest. "Aww, I want to see!"

They went back to Ginny's bedroom, where Ginny proudly rummaged through the bundle of blankets where Cocoa slept at the foot of her bed.

But, much to her surprise, Cocoa was not in his blanket. "Cocoa?" Ginny called, peeking under her bed and checking under the comforters. She looked in every nook and cranny of her dorm, her lower lip trembling.

Hermione and Ginny scoured Gryffindor Tower, calling Cocoa's name and asking everyone if they had seen a little white ferret. Still...

Cocoa the Ferret was nowhere to be seen.

Ginny had her head buried in her arms at lunch, leaning on the table in a depressed position. Hermione plopped down next to her.

"Hey," Hermione began softly, putting a hand on her friend's arm. "Don't worry. We'll find him."

Ginny sniffled, her chin wobbling. "I always wanted a pet, and now I finally get one, and I lose it after one night!"

"Ginny, we'll get him."

Lavender Brown walked over. "Ginny, I'm so sorry about Cuckoo. He was a really cute ferret."

Ginny scowled. "His name is COCOA!"

"Oh. Yeah. Well, I hope you find him." Lavender shuffled away.

Ginny looked over at the Hufflepuff table. Five second-years were huddled around something...It squeaked. Ginny lifted her head up and peered at what they were holding. It was Cocoa, scowling at them malevolently!

"HERMIONE!" cried Ginny. "IT'S COCOA!"

Hermione and Ginny wove in and out between tables and people until they reached the short blonde with the pigtails who was holding Cocoa. She wore a pink bandana over the pigtails and had her short nose turned up in the air. Her fingernails were short, stubby, and covered with bright red nail polish. She was wearing overalls and a yellow sweatshirt under her cloak.

"What do you want, freaks?" she asked in a nasty voice.

"Sorry to bother you, but I believe you have my ferret," Ginny told her sweetly.

The five girls laughed, and the dorky one with frizzy auburn hair and Coke-bottle glasses who was sitting in the back spoke up.

"Idiot. That's a rabbit, not a ferret. Ferrets are imaginary."

The girls continued to snort and giggle.

"His name is Cocoa, and he's just a baby ferret. May I have him back please?"

"His name isn't Cocoa. His name is Bunny-Hammy, first of all, and second, he is NOT a ferret at all! He's a bunny-rabbit, and he's our pet hamster!" screeched the blonde.

"Come on, Amber, let's go," said the orange-haired girl with the green sweatshirt.

"Yeah. These are just bunny-stealer freaks," muttered another.

The stupid one who had suggested that Cocoa was a rabbit stuck her tongue out at Ginny, and marched away with her friends.

"Hermione! You're HEAD GIRL. Please get him back for me?"

Hermione looked at her friend sympathetically. "I'm sorry, Ginny, but I--"

She stopped and smiled, her eyes getting a faraway look. "Ginny, I do have an idea...I just have to go...tell something--first--ohhh...wow!"

Hermione dashed off in the middle of the sentence, probably to the library.

Ginny thunked her head down on the table miserably. "Don't worry," said her brother mock-consolingly. "She does that to everyone. A lot."

"Oh, thanks, that helps loads," Ginny muttered.

Draco scowled all through the morning and early afternoon as the idiotic Hufflepuff fools insisted on dressing him in frilly doll dresses and woolen caps that were orange, fuzzy, and monstrous. They made hot tea in squat yellow cups and thrusted the concoction upon him, scorching his neat fur. Draco couldn't believe how disgusting they could be. By one o'clock, he had been dragged around all of Hogwarts in a pink tea skirt that even had a miniature corset top (which constrained his breathing) and a large furry hat. Worse, all of the giggling third-year girls squealed and squawked about how adorable he was. When he was human, he didn't mind ladies fawning over him. He had a natural aura of sexy around him and he knew it. But he also was aware of the fact that when he was a ferret, the sexy probably faded out.

"Hannah!" screeched the Amber idiot. "Oh, cousin Hannah, come and meet my new pet rabbit-hamster!"

Hannah Abbott was a seventh-year Hufflepuff who used to always wear her hair in pigtails. Draco realized that they had to be cousins: the resemblance, not to mention hairstyles, were uncanny.

"He's quite cute," grimaced Hannah distastefully, "But I have an end-of-unit exam in Honors Muggle Studies and I need to find that Hermione Granger girl so she can explain to me again what a cellular phone is. Bye, Amber."

She walked away briskly, in search of Granger, which gave Draco an idea: Why not run away and find Granger while she was tutoring someone and see if she would be tutoring an Animagus? He'd have to figure out a plan somehow, but he knew it would work eventually.

Now first, he needed to get out of this embarrassing dress.

Hermione came out of the library, looking flushed. She'd just "tutored" with Harry--really, it was just an excuse so they would be allowed to talk in the library--and he'd helped her with an idea she'd had to get Cocoa safely back into Ginny's loving arms.

And now it was time to commence with 'Operation: Confiscate the Ferret'.