Chapter 3
A/N: Yes, I went with the Ron is a food obsessed idiot route... Mostly because I don't really like him. Thanks to everyone who reviewed and favourited and added me to story alerts. I've been doing some brainstorming and have a basic idea of how I want the rest of the story to go, but if anyone has any suggestions of something they just have to see in this story, I might be able to work it in... There's always room for improvement in my storyline. Review?
~Frosty
Disclaimer: On the off chance someone thinks anything's changed since I wrote a disclaimer last chapter, it hasn't. So, to recap: Disclaimer still applies.
"Albus, you can't be serious! If you know how to change them back to humans, then you need to do it! They're students; you can't just let them stay rabbits for the rest of the week!" Madam Pomfry was very distraught about the idea of letting children leave her hospital without being changed back to normal.
"Think about it Poppy, the longer they stay rabbits, the more incentive they'll have to seek revenge on the twins," he paused to stare off into space with a frown on his face. "And I really want someone to get revenge on those twins," Madam Pomfry gave him a curious look, wondering what the twins did to Dumbledore.
"They took all my lemon drops and replaced them with cheese flavoured. Even more tragically, I'm lactose intolerant. No one messes with my lemon drops," Dumbledore trailed off, striding purposefully towards the hospital wing once again.
"Okay, so we've agreed on our first attack, but I don't see why we can't chain them to rocks and let hippogriffs eat their livers."
"Malfoy! For the last time, there's a difference between revenge and murder!"
"I don't see what the difference is! The revenge would be: they die! Painfully, like they deserve," Hermione was getting tired of having this argument, someone needed to explain to the boy the lines between almost harmless pranks and things that would kill people; not that the possibility of death ever seemed to deter Fred and George from bravely –or stupidly – testing out their pranks.
She was about to take it upon herself to explain the lines that seemed to be eluding Draco's understanding when the hospital wing doors opened and Dumbledore entered, closely followed by a flustered looking Madam Pomfry.
"It seems the Weasley twins have struck yet again," Dumbledore said with a seriousness that was contradicted by his eyes, which were twinkling with amusement. He cast a few spells over them, consulting the sheet of paper that appeared in front of him. "I'm afraid that they have outdone themselves this time children. According to my estimation, you both have 6 more days of being rabbits. Lemon drop?" He pulled a handful of them out of his pocket and offered them to the very distraught pair of rabbits. "No? Suit yourselves then," He turned and walked towards the door, throwing over his shoulder: "You're both expected to attend all your classes this week. Mr. Potter and Mr. Zabini will be here after lunch to carry you to them."
The only thing either of them seemed capable of at the moment were identical a disbelieving stares. Madam Pomfry looked at them with pity, "You've both been here since you were eleven and you haven't adjusted to dealing with Dumbledore yet?" She shook her head when she didn't receive a response and walked into her office.
"I get turned into a rabbit and these people expect me to continue attending classes?" Draco muttered angrily. "And Blaise will never let me hear the end of it once he sees me like this!" He almost sounded worried about the last complaint, Hermione was surprised and impressed he feared another student. She wanted to meet this "Blaise", but she had much more important things to worry about at the moment.
"What do they expect us to do in class?" Hermione wondered, "We can't take notes, use our wands, or really participate in any way!"
"Yes Granger, however will you survive without practically jumping out of your seat to answer questions? You just might explode from all the answers in your head that can't get out because you don't have an arm at the moment," Draco mocked, earning him a glare.
Hermione was used to being teased for her... enthusiasm in all of her classes, so if that was all Malfoy was going to make fun of her for, then she was prepared to let it go; they were going to have to work together if their revenge was going to be successful, so she was going to have to let some of the little things slide to avoid murdering, or at least hexing him. She was really looking forward to giving Fred and George exactly what they deserved, but she believed it would be more fitting to get them back with their own method rather than using Malfoy's more deadly alternatives; she had no desire to go to Azkaban. She may have risked it if they had turned her into something truly horrible, like a cockroach, but they had gone with adorable instead of creepy, so their lives were safe at the moment – unless Hermione stopped keeping an eye on Draco, she wouldn't put murder past him when he was in one of his dark moods.
Harry chose that moment to walk into the room. "Harry!" Hermione said happily – she may have been working with Malfoy, but she did not have to like spending time with him. "Where's Ron?" She asked, noticing it wasn't Ron who followed him into the room.
"He didn't want to miss the extra few minutes of lunch that it would have taken for him to come with me..." Harry informed her, causing Hermione to roll her eyes; of course that's where Ron was. They were both used to Ron's obsession with mealtimes and had stopped taking it personally a long time ago, but that didn't mean they found it a little annoying at times.
The person who had come in with Harry was a tall, dark boy with the vague expression of distaste all the Slytherins seemed to have on their face when they couldn't find something in particular to be annoyed with or sneer at. When he caught sight of Draco, he immediately burst out laughing in a thoroughly unSlytherin manner. "I warned you yesterday morning that this week wasn't going to be a good one for you, and you had the nerve to punch me! Do you believe me now, oh great fuzzy rodent?" Malfoy only scowled at him, while Harry looked slightly scared of the laughing Slytherin; usually, when a Slytherin was laughing, something bad was happening to Harry or someone he cared about.
"Actually, rabbit's aren't –" Hermione started, unable to resist correcting his incorrect assumption that rabbits were rodents. The boy just laughed harder. She assumed this was the mysterious Blaise, seemingly the only one allowed to get away with openly laughing at Malfoy.
"You really can't help being a know it all, can you?" the boy asked, still snickering in Draco's direction occasionally. "I mean, I've seen you in class, and heard Draco's complaints about you... But here you are, a rabbit, and you're still correcting pointless little mistakes, you take know it all to another level," Harry snickered a little at this, causing Hermione to glare at him.
Hermione huffed, but only said "You must be Blaise". He nodded absently, moving towards Draco to examine him from all angles, still snickering occasionally.
"Are you quite finished Blaise?" Draco asked, sounding resigned to being laughed at for a while. Blaise tugged on one of Draco's ears and poked his tail.
"You have a tail... And you're all... Fluffy,"
"Blaise," Draco said warningly.
"You nose twitches!" Blaise exclaimed, seemingly delighted by his newest discovery. Draco rolled his eyes and practically growled at him, taking a step closer to his friend, intending it to be threatening, but only managing vaguely menacing... for a rabbit.
Blaise tilted his head to the side and contemplated him for a few seconds. "You just hopped," he said with big eyes, before falling into hysterical laughter again.
"Blaise!' Draco yelled in frustration. Hermione and Harry had been watching this exchange with shock and wonder; who knew Slytherins actually had friends. Everyone had always assumed that any relationships in that house were those of convenience, but they had just witnessed an interaction that proved otherwise.
Blaise was laughing so hard that he had to lean an arm on Draco's bed to hold himself up, leaving him open to attack from an angry Draco. Fortunately for Blaise, the best Draco could do was head butt him and attempt to bite him, only serving to amuse Blaise further.
"Zabini!" Draco finally exploded. "Shut up and pull yourself together! You're a Slytherin, not some Hufflepuff who goes around in fits of giggles! I need you to write a letter for me," he said, glancing at Hermione. Blaise stopped laughing and looked at Draco and then at Hermione.
"Does it have something to do with your furry situation?" He asked, receiving two affirmative nods in response. He tilted his head to the side and glanced between the two of them. "I thought you two hated each other".
"We do," Draco said, Hermione nodding in agreement, "But I currently have a tail, and a tail changes everything. Though it is a wonderful tail, it helps me if I need to stand on my back legs , it's well formed, and has silky soft fur." He trailed off, staring at his tail for a second before shaking his head as if to clear it. "We're working together until those twins get what they deserve," He finished.
Hermione was giving him a funny look. "Let me guess, it's a sexy tail?" she teased, earning looks of confusion from the other two boys in the room.
Draco sighed; he had hoped she was intelligent enough to understand this by now, apparently not. "Of course it's a sexy tail. It's my tail," he explained patiently, as if this should be obvious, receiving an eye roll from everyone else in the room.
Blaise snapped his fingers in front of Malfoy, "Draco! Stay on task; I was writing you a letter?" He seemed to be both used to and able to deal with Draco, Hermione and Harry were impressed.
"I need you to forge my handwriting and ask mother to send me something..."
Harry picked Hermione up and carried her out of the room while the other two were discussing the letter. "I don't even want to know what you two are planning," Harry told her as he carried her towards the great hall. "I'd like to know all about it after it happens though, those two have it coming. I just don't want to get caught up in their retaliation, you understand..." He looked down at Hermione, who was glaring at him.
"Yes Harry, I understand. The boy who will one day defeat Voldemort is afraid of what the Weasley twins will come up with as revenge for a few harmless pranks," she was twitching her nose with annoyance again.
Harry shuddered, "Voldemort's one thing, the twins are on a whole different level. The worst Voldemort could do to me is torture then death, straightforward and everything; who knows what the twins could do. Besides, I'm not sure anything Malfoy is involved in can be described as harmless, he seems the type to get carried away, and before you know it, someone's dead". He finished as they got to the doors of the great hall.
Harry walked quickly to the Gryffindor table, sitting down beside Ron and across from Ginny. Ron said something that was probably a greeting, but his mouth was full so no one really understood him. Ginny on the other hand, immediately noticed Hermione.
"Harry! When did you get a rabbit?" She cooed, picking up Hermione and petting her ears, "She's so cute!"
"Um, Ginny?" Hermione said, startling the redhead holding her. Apparently, no one had bothered to explain the situation to Ginny.
"Hermione?" Ginny asked in disbelief. Then she started laughing. "You ate something from Fred and George, didn't you?" Hermione huffed in annoyance and wiggled her way out of Ginny's hold, still embarrassed that she had fallen for the trick. "Oh! You have to do the bunny face cleaning thing! It's always so adorable when they do that!"
"Have you eaten since this morning?" Harry questioned, eyeing the food on the table to find something a rabbit could eat, saving Hermione from being forced to attempt 'the bunny face cleaning thing'. At her negative answer, he took some broccoli and carrots from the veggie try he found down the table and made Hermione a small saucer, sitting the plate down in the empty place setting beside Ginny. Hermione hopped over and gratefully started eating. Throughout her meal, Hermione was forced to ignore the fact the Ginny was flapping her ears for her like wings, and lifting them up so they were straight up in the air, while continuing to exclaim about how cute she was.
"I still have to go to all of my classes. Harry, did Dumbledore ask you to carry me there?" Hermione asked when she was finished eating her vegetables. Harry nodded and they set off towards classes, Hermione not looking forward to merely being a visitor in her own classes just because she was stuck as a rabbit.
"Today was completely pointless!" Hermione exclaimed, once she and Draco had been dropped off back at the head dorms. Dumbledore had provided small rabbit beds for them to sleep in and placed them on the ground floor so they no longer had to brave the stairs in order to sleep. The disadvantage of this was that their bedroom doors were still closed, and when Blaise and Harry had dropped them off, the door was closed behind them. They were essentially locked in their dorms together overnight, alone. Hermione really hoped she wasn't a murderer by morning.
"It's... It's so round," Malfoy said, hopping out of the bathroom and looking traumatised. Hermione just laughed at him; apparently, he hadn't come across rabbit droppings before to have some forewarning. He was too disturbed to even insult her for daring to laugh at a Malfoy. "Let's just go to sleep Granger, I'm too tired to fight with you right now..." He said tiredly, curling up in his bunny bed. Hermione was in complete agreement and, following his example, fell asleep in her own bed.
Meanwhile, Narcissa Malfoy received an interesting letter from her son, requesting she send him the dark artefact he had received for his birthday from grandma Malfoy. Narcissa frowned, wondering if something that dangerous had any place in a school with all those children.
After thinking about it for a few minutes, she decided that –contrary to popular belief - Draco was a responsible boy who would not bring unnecessary harm to people who didn't deserve it. She pitied whoever had angered her son, because when he felt that harm was necessary, he could be a ruthless as his father.