So I've changed a few minor little plot details to make it mesh better, so I hope it still works well!

Chptr2

Clucking under her breath the matronly medi-witch ejected the still giggling Granger and Weasley from the hospital wing insisting that "the poor child needs some time to come to terms with the current situation and you can quite clearly see that she is in a state of distress currently and we will not have this sort of carry-on here. This is a hospital!"

Harry was still adamantly sulking about her predicament with her back facing the exit, so that she would not see her insensitive friends abandoning her to the ministerings of the bustling Madam Pomfrey. However, much to her chagrin, she still overheard Ron's last comment to Hermione just as they left the room, "she needs her beauty sleep!" and the resulting stifled laughter. Scowling, she pulled the covers over her head.

She figured that being female probably gave you super-hearing or a sixth sense for backtalk or something like that, which explained why girls are always so entirely aware of when anyone is bitching behind their back- he would have to be more careful in future. The medi-witch stopped her rummaging and came and sat herself on one of the pull-out chairs recently vacated by a giggling friend. Harry resolutely refused to talk to her. She was in a sulk and was not about to come out anytime soon. However her resolve was soon tested when Madam Pomfrey asked her: "Harry dear, do you want to ask me anything? I know this is a big change, but I'm sure that we can make you as comfortable as you can be until we figure out how to deal with this".

Harry pulled the thin sheet from her face and rolled over to face her bedside attendant. "Madam Pomfrey…" she hazarded, tentatively figuring out how to broach the subject, "How did I… why… what happened to cause this?" she gestured up and down herself with a slightly pained expression.

"Well dearie," Madam Pomfrey looked as though she were arranging her thoughts. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"Well, I vaguely remember being in the dungeons for potions, but after that I'm drawing a blank". She shrugged. "Can you fill me in?"

"Of course I can," Madam Pomfrey put her hand on Harry's delicate shoulder and inhaled…

3 hours earlier

Draco Malfoy rocked up to the dungeons with a self-satisfied smirk etched across his angular, handsome face. The pretty but slightly dim Pansy Parkinson was clutching his arm and wittering in his ear, but Draco had learned to tune out the frivolous commentary of the slightly pug-faced girl who fancied herself his girlfriend. The cause of his exceptionally good mood that morning had been none other than one Harry Potter; namely the fact that he had well and truly riled the boy who lived in Care of Magical Creatures the lesson before. All he had had to do was insult that great oaf, Hagrid who was really rather incompetent as a teacher. To be perfectly honest, for once Malfoy hadn't even started off trying to bother Potter, he was actually just righteously pissed with Hagrid constantly trying to pass off creatures that could and would eat him for breakfast as cute and cuddly. It was on Draco's bucket list to hammer the message "Manticores Cannot be House Trained" into the man's skull in Morse code. With a brick. But Potter had heard his angry tirade during the lesson in question and stepped in to defend his large friend. To Draco's great delight, he'd managed to get right underneath the self-righteous git's skin in the process of venting his frustrations. In fact, Potter had looked close to throwing a punch! If the mudblood and he-weasel hadn't stepped in to pull the dishevelled hero off his case, Draco might even have had a good reason for Gryffindor to lose even more points. Thankfully for his profile however, Draco had escaped without a broken nose, and was feeling incredibly good about himself.

He walked into potions with his hulking great hangers-on - for whom he had a soft-spot a mile wide which he'd never admit to - , Crabbe and Goyle at his tail, and the feather-brained Parkinson girl still babbling in her insipid cutesy voice reserved just for him. He detached himself with some effort from his cronies and took his place at his desk, dumping his immaculate potions equipment on the surface. He ran his long-fingered, aristocratic hand through his perfectly coiffed silvery-blond hair. His little smirk turned to a full-blown shit-eating grin as he caught site of the boy-who-lived glowering at his from across the dimly lit lab. He winked at the boy who huffed and turned away, his face stormy. Draco chuckled to himself. Snape, who seemed in a particularly foul mood today – oh poor Potter! – swooped into the room like a vulture whose prey turned around and smacked him on the nose. Draco felt a stirring of sympathy for his godfather.

Slamming some papers onto his desk, the moody professor immediately attracted the attention of the whole class. "Professor Dumbledore," he spat, "has insisted that all the subject professors teach a lesson inkeeping with the theme of today – which, as you all know perfectly well, is Halloween". Snape's voice was positively dripping with disdain for the holiday. At Hogwarts, it was never anything short of eventful. Draco didn't have any particular argument with this holiday, except perhaps for the fact that Pansy always wanted to co-ordinate costumes for whatever party was going on that year. There was no way he was going as some brooding supernatural love interest this year. No way.

"Today's lesson is going to instruct you on how to brew a less potent version of polyjuice potion," Draco was pretty sure he heard the man mutter under his breath that "these goddamn trouble-makers don't need any more encouragement". Obviously this hadn't been his choice of brew. "If concocted correctly, this potion will allow the drinker to take on a partially altered state of appearance to lend a sort of believability to one's costume this year". This announcement was followed by a curled lip from the head of Slytherin, and a giggle from the direction of one of the Patil girls, Draco could never remember which - what sort of deranged parent names their identical children alliterating names? - and the bottle blonde girl - that had attached herself to the Patil girl's side and hadn't let go since first year - whom Draco believed was named after some dumb perfumed flower like chamomile or some-shit. Draco figured that the potion was Dumbledore's idea of funny or cute. That man, as great a wizard as he was, wasn't quite right in the head – how could he not realise that this was going to cause chaos? Draco thrived on chaos.

"Open your textbooks to page 27," Snape barked, resigned to his pre-supplied lesson plan. "I shall take charge of pairing for this exercise. No Weasley, edging closer to Potter will not change my mind! If you get any closer I shall have to remove you from my class for lewd behaviour".

Draco purposefully tuned out the pairings announcements, he would just end up with another Slytherin, so what did it matter? He figured that his partner would just have to come find him. And he was right. Someone's bony finger prodded him on the shoulder blade.

"Earth to Malfoy?" this from a voice that made Draco's lip curl in distaste, so much for his good day. Co-operating with Potter? He didn't think so. "I've been assigned to work with you and you don't have to like it, God knows I don't but you have to put up with me alright?" Draco sighed and spun around, showing his dislike plainly on his face.

"Will you please stop yammering in my ear Potter?" Draco snapped. He was beginning to form a theory that Professor Snape shipped the pair of them as he was always putting them together in class. While the idea of enemies such as themselves engaged in distasteful actions would no doubt be incredibly sexy and he could see how he… ahem… Professor Snape might get off on it, Draco was adamantly not gay. And even if he were, this was Potter. He resigned himself to ordering the decidedly not attractive black-haired boy around. In a completely non-sexy way. "Get started then. Chop chop."

Potter sighed with a tone that suggested he was five hundred percent done, which made Draco oddly satisfied. No, not oddly, and in an enemy way of course, any time Harry Potter was annoyed at his hand, it made Draco that little bit happier, just like that morning. He really loathed that boy – there was definitely no fine line, it was all hate. Harry Potter started collecting the valid ingredients from the potions cupboard and Draco was not watching his arse.

"Malfoy!" Potter hissed in his ear. Draco turned irritably and not at all turned on. "You can grind up these scarab beetles and thinly chop these roots. Oh and also shell these for me".

"I thought I was clear in my intention for you to do all the work," Draco drawled, not moving a hand to help, before realising that his reluctance to help had something to do with the way Potter's arms looked when he worked, "But if I must". He grabbed a handful of scarab beetles at random and shoved them into the mortar. He could always blame the failure of their potion on Potter. After all, it wasn't Draco's fault that he was… distracting.

"Once you're done with that you need to measure out the amount it says in the book to the cauldron and then add them into the cauldron".

Draco took a handful of slightly crushed beetles and tossed them into the cauldron, then another, whilst Harry wasn't looking.

"That's the beetles done," Draco said with a suspiciously innocent tone of voice.

"Good," responded Harry absentmindedly, really not paying attention, shrugging off his robe and chopping up some creature or other. Not that Draco noticed or anything.

Draco didn't even make any attempt with the roots or whatever it was he was supposed to be shelling. He didn't really feel like he was ever going to require this potion in the real world, and he thought that blaming the failure of their potion on Potter would bring Slytherin one step closer to winning the House Cup this year. Professor Snape would never assume that the mishap had been his fault, after all, he was pretty amazing at potions, if he said so himself.

Three quarters of an hour passed with Harry completely oblivious to Draco's efforts to ruin his efforts.

"Times up," drawled Snape. "Now, I'm going to need a volunteer to try out their potion". Snape looked around the room, pantomiming searching for a raised hand, "Ah yes, how about you Potter".

Now as much as Draco hated the boy, he really couldn't deal with it if something truly terrible happened to him. For the most part, he told himself, if it ever got out that a Malfoy injured, or God forbid, killed the famous Harry Potter, it would surely tarnish the family name. He felt himself turn white as a sheet as all the blood ran from his face. Nobody noticed this uncharacteristic show of emotion however, as A) his skin was already incredibly pale – something he prided himself on - and B) everyone's attention was on the shaggy-haired boy-wonder sitting next to him.

Snape swept down on their workstation and scooped up a flask of their potion, completely missing his favourite student's slow death from terror right beside him. Draco took a shaky breath. Snape handed the flask to Potter. Draco paled further – incredible really, someone should document this. Potter lifted the flask to his perfectly stupid lips. Draco wondered if he should say something, anything – knock the flask from his hands. Potter swallowed the liquid. Draco recoiled, expecting an explosion of some sort. Potter turned a deep shade of red, then almost as white as Draco, then red again, then finally, a strange shade of purple as he clutched at his throat and collapsed at the desk.

3 hours later

"So you see dear," Madam Pomfrey explained, patting Harry tenderly, "you blacked out completely, and in the two hours that you've been here, somehow, you morphed into your current form. Needless to say, I've never seen anything like it". The woman looked at her with a sad little smile.

"And do you know how to reverse it?" Harry wondered. She didn't really fancy being stuck like this for good. Imagine what would happen once the press got wind of it?

"Not as of yet," Madam Pomfrey sighed, "But Severus is working on a cure as we speak".

Of course, since Snape had hated Harry with a vengeance since her first year, she didn't hold much hope for a positive outcome in the case. Nor did she hold her sigh.

You know the drill, review if you love it, sod off if you don't!