Chapter 9

A/N: We're nearing the end! There's one more chapter and an epilogue left... It's going to be sad to see this finished I think. Also... The cupcake thing... I realized it could be pictured as dirty so I found a picture of what I wanted it to look like and posted it in my profile, picture that except with a real cupcake. Get your minds out of the gutter; undergarments don't count as clothes, so they're underneath it. Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed! I don't usually respond unless someone asks a direct question that isn't answered in the next chapter, but I read them all and appreciate them!

~Frosty

... If things make slightly less sense in this one, it's 4:30 am and I didn't decided to start editing the chapter until half an hour ago, so blame it on the sleep deprivation.

Disclaimer: In case you missed the last 8 or so, none of it's mine – still.

"How're we going to do this?" Hermione asked Draco. They were still in the corner, planning how to act out Snape's revenge.

"Well, if the way they keep glancing at us is any indication, then they suspect we're up to something and are going to be on their guard..." He answered, running his hand through his hair as he thought. His eyes suddenly lit up as he came up with an idea. "They'll be on their guard against anything magical" he started slowly, "but not muggle things!" he finished triumphantly.

Hermione stared at him in disbelief. "I think you've hit your head," she said worriedly.

Draco glared, but continued with his idea. "We just have to get them somewhere alone, isn't there some sort of ... 'lectricity' thing that could do that?"

Hermione sighed; he really needed to take muggle studies or something; though she was secretly pleased that he put that much faith in muggle technologies. "I'm the only muggle born in the house," she explained to him patiently, "the only ones who would even be able to use muggle things in this house are Harry and I... And possibly Arthur, but I haven't trusted him with anything muggle since I found him about to shove a fork in one of the electrical outlets the last time he came to visit my dad to talk about batteries or some such thing."

Draco had no idea what an outlet was or why a fork shouldn't be in one, but he assumed something bad would happen, he filed this away for later use in case he ever ended up in a muggle home. "How do we get them alone then?" he asked, drawing on her greater knowledge of how their minds worked.

"Easy, we don't," she told him smugly. Now he was confused. "We don't get them alone, we get someone else to get them somewhere alone, someone they wouldn't suspect."

"Who?"

"Molly," she told him happily. "They made all her pots and pans chase Ron around the house over the summer, they got all kinds of dents and chips in them and she hasn't got them back for it yet. I'm pretty sure she'd be willing to help."

They knew that they weren't going to be able to ask Molly to help them until Dumbledore and Snape had left, so they went back over to where everyone else seemed to be plotting how to use the extendible ears to eavesdrop on the meeting currently taking place in the kitchen. "How do you know Snape, Mallory?" Harry asked as they got back.

"He's friends with my parents," Draco answered honestly. Harry gave him a hard look for a second, no doubt wondering how anyone would willingly subject themselves to Snape's presence. Draco didn't understand it himself really, but Severus wasn't so bad once you got to know him.

Fred and George were just getting back into the room with their extendable ears when Dumbledore and Snape passed them and left through the fire. Molly and Arthur followed their path back into the room, looking serious. "Children, one of your classmates seems to have disappeared," Molly said gravely. "Severus is checking the homes of all the seventh years in case he's staying with them... Even the really unlikely ones."

Even thought she had a bad feeling she knew who it was that was missing, Hermione asked, "who's missing?"

"Draco Malfoy," Arthur told them, causing Ginny to burst out laughing.

"I'm sorry, it's just so... sad that I can't stop laughing," she weakly defended herself before turning and running from the room, her hysterical laughter could be heard as she made her way up to her bedroom.

"We better go... err, console her," Hermione said quickly, dragging Mallory's arm and running from the room after Ginny.

They found her on her bed in hysterics. "Snape talked to Malfoy and he didn't even know he was the one he was looking for!" she told Hermione when they came in the room - she still hadn't gotten into the habit of addressing Draco directly.

"Actually... He knew exactly who he was talking to. Someone forgot he couldn't smirk like that when he didn't look like himself," Hermione told Ginny, who stopped laughing once her joke was ruined.

"Why didn't he take him home then?"

"Your brothers offended him; he wanted Malfoy to get his revenge for him in exchange for being allowed to stay," Hermione explained.

"What did he ask you to do?" She asked Draco, too curious to notice that she was addressing him directly for the first time in the conversation.

"We're not telling you." He told her, with a stern glance at Hermione to warn her that she wasn't to tell either. "We don't know if you're working with them or not." He ignored her offended look, he was a Slytherin, and as such, he didn't trust any of these Gryffindors.

"We should get started on this," Hermione told him, he agreed and went in search of Molly.

They conveniently found her alone in the kitchen. "I know they can be horrible people, but no one deserves to have a child go missing like that," she was saying sadly to herself.

Draco was almost touched that this person his parents had been nothing but horrible to could still feel empathy for them. "Molly, we need your help with something," Hermione told her, unable to come up with a response to what Molly had been saying to herself – she wasn't even sure if she was supposed to hear what had been said.

"What is it you two need?"

"Fred and George said something mean about Snape as he arrived, and he heard it. He asked us to get his revenge for him," Hermione explained, Molly was more than happy to help lure them into a room, but she didn't want to know anything about the revenge aside from the fact that no one would be hurt.

"Fred! George!" Molly screeched from downstairs, "I need you two to go into the attic and bring spare linens down!"

They both groaned. "What are the chances she forgets she asked us?" Fred asked.

"I'm not going to forget I asked you, now move it!"

"She's scary sometimes," George told his twin, who was nodding in agreement.

Unsuspecting of any foul play, the twins made their way to the attic; where they were immediately stunned by the pair laying in wait for them.

Hermione and Draco were doing their best to move the twins downstairs without making enough noise to wake the sleeping household. They had stunned the twins in the afternoon, but were forced to wait until the middle of the night to get them downstairs. Hermione was bringing George down by levitating him, but Malfoy had insisted dragging Fred down the stairs, banging his head on every step on the way down.

"Malfoy!" Hermione hissed at him, "I told their mother that no one was going to get hurt! And you're going to wake someone up!" He rolled his eyes and cast a silencing charm around them, Hermione glared, but didn't bother trying to stop him; they were almost at the bottom anyway.

When they finally managed to get the twins into the entranceway on the ground floor, they both looked up at the ceiling, contemplating how they were going to make this work. "Okay, you get them up there and I'll transfigure their robes," Hermione told him, already starting her task.

Draco leaned back and watched her work - he really couldn't do much until she was finished. He would never admit it to anyone, but he rather enjoyed the look of concentration she got on her face when she was completely focused on something, it was endearing. She actually wasn't all that bad now that he knew her better, she wasn't near as stiff and uptight as he had always assumed. She was occasionally even fun to be around.

Draco was interrupted from his inner monologue by Hermione, "why haven't you started on George?" she demanded.

He scowled, this was not one of the times she was fun to be around. The finished setting up their prank and stopped to admire their handiwork. They both grinned; this was going to be good.

The next morning, the whole Weasley household got quite the shock: Fred and George were stuck to the ceiling by their feet, wearing robes that had been charmed to look like bat wings. Their ears had even been transfigured into bat ears.

"I'm never insulting Snape again," Harry said, staring up at the twins in awe. They were very red in the face from hanging upside down all night and waving their arms frantically, trying to get their dumbstruck family to help them, but only succeeding in making their 'wings' flap. "Was this what Snape wanted to talk to you about Mallory?" Everyone turned to look at Hermione and Draco, who were both waving up at the twins.

"You know boys, if you hadn't done something evil to everyone in the house, then maybe one of us would feel like we have to get you down," Molly told her mischievous sons with a stern look.

"I think it would do you both some good to stay up there for a while, maybe it will make you think twice about testing your products on family members," Arthur added, grinning up at his sons.

Draco took out the camera he had hidden behind his back, snapping a picture of the pair attached to the ceiling. Hermione was the only one who noticed and looked at him questioningly. "Severus made me promise to take a picture of the end result, said something about the picture of Potter he had on this dartboard needed replacing," Draco told her, smirking at the thought and earning an elbow in the side for forgetting he wasn't supposed to smirk.

"Elbow me again Granger, and I'll make you regret it," Draco warned quietly, finally tired of the bruises on his ribs.

"I wouldn't have to elbow you if you'd just stop smirking!" She hissed back.

"Hermione, dear, it's time for the annual Christmas holidays quidditch match, you said you and your friend would like to use the kitchen? Molly asked her later during breakfast. The twins had been eventually let down, after being forced to swear an unbreakable vow to never anyone while under their parent's roof. Arthur had thought it was a little bit too harsh, but Molly was still quite upset about her dented pots.

"Yes, we need to bake some pies," Hermione explained, leaving out that no one was going to be eating the pies.

Everyone soon filed outside to brave the cold and play their game, while Hermione and Draco moved to the kitchen – Draco casting wistful looks outside at the people playing quidditch. Hermione caught his look and sighed, she would never understand everyone's obsession with it; baking was much more fun.

Unsurprisingly, Draco had rarely been in a kitchen, much less attempted to bake something, but he was determined to help regardless of how much help he would actually be. "Granger... How does this turn into pie filling?" he asked as he poked the can of cherry pie filling with his wand– they were hardly going to take the extra time to make the pies from scratch only have them squashed onto someone's face.

"The pie filling is inside the can, it's a muggle shortcut," she explained patiently, smirking when he took a step back and started poking the can from a distance. "Just take the can opener like this, and then turn this knob here," she demonstrated how to work the can opener for him on the first can, and then sent him to work on the next two while she continued rolling the pit crust.

"Granger, are you sure these things will make a pie when they're done?" he asked for what felt like the 100th time.

"Yes Malfoy, I've done it quite a few times. I promise it'll look like a pie, I'm even making an extra one so I can prove to you it tastes like a pie too." Draco still looked doubtful, but Hermione went back to rolling the crust again. "Malfoy, could you sprinkle some flour on the counter here? It's starting to get sticky."

Draco peeked into the bag she had indicated and wrinkled his nose. "Granger, my hand would get all dirty if I did that."

Hermione glared at him, would it really kill him to be helpful? She was really starting to get fed up with his constant attitude. He wanted to help bake but didn't actually want to get messy? She would show him 'all dirty'. She upturned the bag of flour on his unsuspecting head. "There," she told him cheerily, "now you're 'all dirty', and your hair is back to the right colour."

"That's it Granger! I've put up with you dragging me around, elbowing me, dying my hair, and now this? This is the final straw!" He turned around and stomped out of the room, trailing flour behind him.

Hermione tilted her head to the side as she watched him go, wondering what in the world he planned on doing for revenge. She would need to be on her guard.

The oven timer beeped, signalling that the pies were done and distracting her from worrying about surprise attacks of any kind.

While Hermione was bent over pulling one of the pies out of the oven, she felt a spell hit her. Nothing hurt or seemed horribly wrong, so she carefully took the last pie out of the oven and sat it on the counter before turning around to glare at a smug Draco. "That's a good look for you, Granger, the frosting really brings out your eyes," he told her, grinning.

She looked down at herself, frowning. Her eyes widened in horror as she saw what appeared to be frosting. "Malfoy... Why do you even know a spell to transfigure someone's clothes into a giant pink cupcake?" She actually wasn't sure if she wanted to know to answer, but she had to ask.

He grinned evilly. "Blaise turned my hair green; I turn his clothes into a large pink cupcake. I figured it was fitting that you shared his future frosting fate since you were the mastermind behind the whole incident, Cupcake."

Hermione cringed; she really hoped he wasn't going to keep calling her Cupcake now.

Unfortunately for her, Draco had noticed the cringe and made a mental not to call her Cupcake as frequently as possible.

"Hermione dear, if I had known this was what you were going to do when you asked to use the kitchen, I'm not sure I would have let you..." Molly said, looking confused, as the whole Weasley clan plus Harry came in behind her and adopted similar looks.

Hermione turned bright red and ran from the room, pushing Draco into a wall as she passed him in the doorway.

Ginny watched this exchange with amusement. "Mum, I think Hermione made the pies on the counter there, and Mallory charmed her clothes to be like that..." She explained in place of her friend as she left the room to go and find Hermione, grabbing Malfoy as she walked by him and dragging him behind her.

They found her sitting on Ginny's bed, still a cupcake, with her head in her hands. She glanced up as they walked into the room. "That was embarrassing," she groaned.

"Not near as bad as having my mother show up after you dyed my hair," Draco said dryly, without pity for a little bit of frosting that wasn't even close to permanent.

Hermione smirked at the memory. "I don't know; I have frosting up to my neck and cake in places cake should not be, I think that a little bit worse than your mother's hysterics. Are we even now?"

Draco considered it for a moment. "Not even close Granger. Though I am willing to be generous and allow you a respite until after we're finished with those identical demons."

Hermione nodded; she knew that was the best she was going to get. Now she only had to figure out how to get rid of her new outfit...