Disclaimer: Characters etc belong to JK Rowling and Warner. Hello Kitty belongs to – I'm not sure. Not to me. Possibly to Japan as a whole.

ooOOoo

Chapter 57: Bad Hair Day

Taking a few minutes before class, Harry popped back to Gryffindor to get changed into clean robes. I wonder what Luna's hiding place is going to be? Dumbledore seemed to think she knew of a good one. It'll be weird not having the Golden Sickle on hand… but it'll be a relief not to have to worry about losing it, or some Death Eater getting hold of me and the Sickle and giving it to Voldemort. As he took it out of his pocket, he realised something wasn't quite right. There was still a weight in his pocket. Something else was in there – but it wasn't a last sprig of mistletoe; his hand closed around something round and so warm with ripe magic he could almost smell it.

He drew it out.

It was a fig.

Harry stared at it as it lay in the palm of his hand, heavy and plump and pulsing with power that belied its apparent innocence.

"What the hell…?"

There was a noise from the stairs. Harry quickly stuffed the fig into his trunk and closed the lid. He tucked the Sickle into the pocket of his fresh robes and shrugged the robes over his shoulders just as Dean walked into the room.

Dean's eyes darted around, and for a moment Harry wondered why the other boy should look so guilty. What had Dean said about him this time? Should Harry say something nasty first, draw his wand or –?

"Hey, Harry."

It was hard to draw a wand on someone who sounded friendly, even if he sounded worried along with it. "Dean. Looking for something?"

"Er… just my notes…" Dean snatched up a Muggle-style writing pad from his bed. He visibly relaxed as he held it behind his back. "What about you?"

"Thought I'd better get changed. I didn't want everyone complaining that I smell like a horse."

Dean smiled. "More so than usual?"

"Well, it's better than Seamus' aftershave."

Dean's smile grew into a cautious grin. "It's the one thing he hasn't set on fire. God knows why – it's so bad you'd think it would spontaneously combust."

Harry laughed. "And since when has he started shaving? More than the once a month of the rest of us, that is?"

"Wishful thinking on his part. Er… do you think Bulstrode has started?"

"Shaving? Merlin, I was hoping to be up to once a week at the least before she did… Don't tell her I said that – she's almost friendly to me these days."

"Your secret's safe with me." Dean tucked the pad into his bookbag. "Coming down for Charms?"

"I'd better." Harry picked up his own bag and followed Dean down the stairs to the common room. "I've missed too many classes in the last month – Flitwick isn't going to accept magical misadventure as an excuse… not again."

"True." Dean hesitated before the exit, breathing a little quicker than necessary. "Er… I just wanted to apologise for being a git to you."

Harry appreciated that, but: "Are you going to apologise to Luna?"

"Would it help?"

"Only one way to find out."

Dean nodded and forced a watery smile. "True. Next time I see her…"

Harry felt much better. He still felt tired and grumpier than he had any right to be, even after only a few hours sleep and an unpleasant trip down memory lane – or memory alternate dimension – but it was a relief to see someone not being a complete burk for once.

ooOOoo

Down in the Republic of Slytherin, Comrade Malfoy was in the bathroom. He held a bottle upside-down over his hand.

Nothing came out. Not even a spark.

"Ah, crap! I'm out of goop!" he swore. He knew there had been something he'd missed getting in Hogsmeade. Too late now. It was hardly as if he could saddle up Simon and go for a quick canter down to the village.

Speaking of Simon, the horse had snuffled in his hair and blown strands hither and thither… that should have been the first hint the magic in the bottle was running low. He stared morosely in the mirror at his stubborn hair, which was worse than he remembered it ever being before he'd started using Sleekeazy. Maybe it was this bad because his hair had grown out quite a bit since his last trim. There was a reason why he needed to keep it slicked back, after all, and now it was so long that even his widow's peak had grown down past his ears, almost to his chin…

"I look like a frigging dandelion clock!" he swore. And wondered if it was worth leaving the dormitory. Or the bathroom.

"You still in there, Comrade Draco?"

Double argh: the new fashion was for using the informality of first names for each and everyone, not just close personal allies and girls you didn't hate (unless you did hate them and they knew it, and you kept calling each other by your first names just to be spiteful… Pansy would regret deeply and profoundly ever toying with Draco Malfoy). Draco reminded himself for the hundredth time that getting the hang of this easy way of dealing with people like they were best buddies was part and parcel of developing The Common Touch, which he would need at some point if he was ever going to do a decent job of running the universe. In the meantime, slapping 'Comrade' in front of it mitigated the cringe-factor somewhat. Draco just had to hold out until the comrades on the Committee for Nomenclature Standards of the Glorious Revolution changed the policy back to family names. Until then he just had to put up with it.

Abject political correctness and its advocates would be First Against the Wall when Draco took over.

But right now he had a more important issue to consider than the future of global politics.

"Comrade Blaise?"

Thank Merlin it wasn't anyone else – Zabini wasn't a complete pillock, and the situation mightn't be completely unsalvageable… although it would require him doing something he'd promised himself a long time ago he would never stoop to…

"You okay in there?"

"No. Do you have any Sleekeazy?"

"You've got to be joking. Last time I used that my hair grew backwards. I was bald for a week."

Bugger it. "Oh, that's right." Damn wizards and their idiosyncratic hair. Thrice-damn Sleekeazy for not having a proper level on the bottle to tell him when he was running out. And a side-order of damnation for Draco, who'd laughed at Zabini. Now would be a perfect time for Zabini's revenge. But Draco knew his weakness.

"Comrade Blaise – can you go and see if any of our female comrades are still around? There's a box of Droobles bubble gum in it for you if you can help me."

ooOOoo

Perhaps it was tiredness, but Harry couldn't shake the dark mood that unaccountably dogged him after the meeting with Dumbledore. His morning wasn't improved by the mild heart-attack he sustained when Draco and two other Slytherins walked into class ten minutes late. By the gasps from the rest of the class, the yelp from Snuffles, who was attending classes with Harry for some inscrutable Animagus reason of his own, plus the small 'meep!' emitted by Professor Flitwick as he'd toppled off his stack of books, Harry wasn't the only one who'd been given a shock.

It wasn't so much the ten minutes as the way Draco's normally slicked-back hair had been firmly brushed down with water and then spell-dried so it looked silken. It was now held in place at the nape of his neck by a silver clip in the shape of a snake. It was that in addition to the slight sneer Draco put on in self-defence when everyone stared at him.

It didn't help when Draco drew himself up haughtily and his pale eyes glared around the classroom as if he couldn't believe the collection of inferiors he had to put up with.

Draco had never looked so much like his father.

Small wonder one Ravenclaw had shrieked: "Merlin have mercy on our souls! The barrier is down and Death Eaters are among us! Flee, flee for your lives!", jumped out the window and barely been saved from death by three-story drop by a fast wand-wave from Flitwick.

Zabini, slightly less pale and shaky since the Economic Committee of the Glorious Revolution had appointed him treasurer and given him real power within the House, smirked to do Slytherins though the ages proud as he slunk in through the door and took advantage of the commotion to hide the fact he was massively late. Millicent, coming in and closing the door behind the ferociously-scowling Malfoy (whose expression now made Harry wonder about possible genetic connections between him and Snape), rolled her eyes and muttered, "Was that really necessary?"

"Well, Brian's always been a little bit nervy," Hermione said, biting her lip before she could laugh.

"I meant Professor Flitwick stopping him from falling on his head," Bulstrode growled.

Harry was briefly amused, but that didn't last long before what felt like a dark cloud settled over him again. He scowled at the notes he was taking all the way through Charms and then again in Potions, where Sprout had them make a draught for exterminating alphids, which had been sucking the sap out of the fidal roses she was growing for the seventh-years.

Halfway through Potions even Ron grew exasperated with Harry's surly attitude.

"Give us a break, mate," he growled as Harry shredded daisy roots too roughly to be used in the potion. "What's eating you, anyway?"

"Maybe the fact we've spent the night making a potion that actually means something, then have to come in here and faff about with this… this… tripe," he muttered under his breath.

The grey-brown mass roiling in the cauldron did look a little bit like tripe. Or Dudley's old clothes being specially greyed by Aunt Petunia before she considered them suitable for Harry.

"Look, we'll finish the potion up tonight after curfew," Ron said, wrinkling his nose as he stared down at the revolting gloop. "Luna's going to find us a place, and then we'll be done with it. What's the problem?"

But Harry couldn't explain what the problem was. It had something to do with the finishing of the potion and the finishing of something else.

He dumped the roots in the potion.

The potion immediately turned a violent purple. There was an ominous sound, something like a flatulent tar pit might make, and Ron grabbed Harry by the neck of his robes and yanked him under the table.

Someone screamed. There was a hissing noise that sounded exactly like a cauldron full of ooze boiling over onto the fire.

Purple dripped off the table.

There was a clang as a metal lid slammed down on the cauldron. For a split second, Harry was back twenty-one years, watching Severus cap a roomful of cauldrons before the contents could turn into a deadly aerosol poison.

"Evanesco." The purple muck swirled around itself and disappeared. Sprout's face, red, angry and upside-down as she looked under the table, appeared in Harry's vision. It gave him a bit of a start – what with the combination of an irritated instructor, potion gone to pot and trouble on the horizon, he'd half been expecting to see Snape. Sprout was a bit of a disappointment.

He really must be very tired.

So was she, by the harried lines around her eyes and mouth. She spoke in clipped sentences. "You two. Get out here. Now."

It was highly rare to see her this angry. Even the stray wisps of hair escaping from her bun frizzed in an annoyed manner. Cowed, Harry and Ron clambered out from under the table to find themselves the focal point of Sprout's fury.

She took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. "At what point did I tell you to add bark to the potion? I seem to recall there was a part of the lesson where I made sure that everyone knew the consequences of putting even the merest shred of bark in the potion. Yet you two seem to have put – can you guess? – bark in the potion. How is it that two students who have been in my Herbology class for six years do not know what bark is? Because it would seem you do not."

Blimey, thought Harry, she's channelling Snape.

And it suddenly dawned on him what was wrong: they'd almost finished with the notes Severus had written for them. Severus was dead without forgiving Harry for tricking him – Harry would never be able to say sorry… Harry hadn't warned him about how he would die – or he had, but only in the certain knowledge Severus wouldn't remember. And all this time he'd been happily using Severus' notes while there was no way he could repay him, let alone save his life…

"Potter, has that potion affected your hearing?"

…And Dumbledore had wished Harry would never find out what it was like to carry the burden of betraying someone's trust.

If wishes were horses…

"Potter?"

"Harry? What is it, mate?"

If wishes were horses… Harry wished that the idea he could feel pressing behind that thought would come clear. He rubbed his forehead and realised people were talking at him.

"Er… sorry?"

Sprout, torn between anger and worry, said, "Are you all right, Potter? You took a bit of a funny turn there…" She ignored the snigger from the Slytherin side of the room – Harry thought it sounded like it had come from Pansy Parkinson and Crabbe. Goyle was watching Draco for a hint of how he was meant to react. Draco's expression was bland, as was Bulstrode's, but Harry suspected there was a flicker of concern there which meant Harry must have been acting pretty weird.

"I… think the fumes were getting to me. Sorry, Professor. And it was my fault the potion went wrong, not Ron's. I wasn't careful enough with separating out the cores of the roots."

"Hmm. Do you need to go to the Infirmary?"

"No, ma'am."

"Well, in that case you can sit down quietly and write a paragraph on why the potion reacted as it did. Weasley, go and assist Granger and Longbottom.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Yes, Professor."

Ron busied himself with helping Hermione and Neville, who had almost finished and only needed help with decanting the potion into bottles.

Harry stared at his blank bit of parchment and tried to force his tired mind into working and giving him that precious bit of insight he'd almost had just for a second back there.

ooOOoo

But by lunchtime he still hadn't got it, and the frustration only darkened his mood further. Remus was up at the High Table, and by the narrowing of his eyes when he saw Harry, it was obvious he still had questions Harry needed to answer. Harry didn't feel up to thinking of convincing lies, so he grabbed a chicken roll from a table as well as a couple of apples and stomped out of the castle, deciding to visit Simon and give him the owed apples instead. Snuffles followed. Remus did not.

Harry caught up with Draco on the way; Draco had been walking slowly, kicking at the occasional stone, hands in his pockets and apparently deep in thought. He nodded to Harry.

"Nice clip."

"I've heard quite enough about it, thanks," Draco said in a chilly voice.

Harry shrugged. But he couldn't resist adding, "Guess there were a few silver items that didn't end up on Simon's feet."

Draco shot him a poisonous glare. Harry smiled back sunnily, taking a leaf from Luna's book. Draco shook his head in disgust. Harry took heart in someone being in a worse mood than himself, especially as it was Draco. Then he felt a little guilty. "Did you bring anything for Simon?"

"No. I'll bring him something later." Which meant Draco had forgotten.

"Here." Harry gave him one of the apples. "I brought two."

"Ta."

They continued to Squirrel Hill in silence. Thunder rumbled occasionally, but in a half-hearted way which suggested the sky mightn't open up on them right now. Maybe. If it was in a generous mood.

Harry found Luna had already beaten them up to the paddock. She was busy doing something to Simon's forelock. Harry hoped she wasn't testing out spells to turn it pink.

She wasn't – not quite.

"Did you know," she said as he approached, although she didn't seem to have seen them coming and they was walking quietly, "that horses in shows have their manes plaited?"

"No, I didn't," Harry replied, while Draco cast a puzzled look over Simon, frowning at the way Luna had turned Simon's mane into a series of black lumps running along his crest. "I haven't had much to do with horse shows."

"Well, in shows horses have their manes plaited. Their tails, too. Although I think Arabian horses don't have to have their manes and tails plaited for some reason. But I thought it might be nice to practise on Simon. I want to take him to some shows when the Blockade is ended."

Draco tilted his head to the side. "Are you allowed to take stallions to the local shows? The way everyone goes on about them you'd think they were too dangerous for the general populace."

Simon's eyelashes rose and fell slightly with his breathing. His head was lowered as he half-dozed, which was lucky. If he'd taken exception to Luna plaiting his mane and forelock he could have used his superior height to stop the indignity. One back foot was cocked at rest, and his bottom lip drooped a little, as it often did when he was sleeping standing up. He seldom looked less dangerous except when he was flat on his side and snoring. Harry patted him on the rump.

"Well, some shows will let him attend." Luna pulled on an ear and Simon twitched, waking up a few degrees. "Especially those shows where people with mares go to see if there are any good looking stallions at stud. I'm sure loads of people would like to send their mares for a visit with you, Simon, especially after you strut your stuff at the stallion parade."

Simon's eyelashes fell again. His nose was just above the level of Luna's knees now.

Luna frowned and continued with the plaiting. She'd done his entire mane into plaits which she had doubled over and wound around themselves until Simon looked like he had a row of small black pinecones marching down his neck, and was now apparently doing to same to the forelock.

"How long have you been out doing this?" Harry asked.

"I had a free period."

"And you spent it playing My Little Pooka with Simon?" said Draco, sounding a little indignant. "And… and are those hair bobbles you've got in his mane?" The indignation was swiftly growing.

"Aren't they jolly?" Luna smiled mistily as she tucked the end of the plait under and under again, then fastened it with a band of pink. Having his forelock off his face wasn't a great look for Simon – it accentuated his slightly Roman nose, making his head seem heavier and slightly sinister despite (or because of) the cheerful pink dotting his crest.

Harry leaned forward for a closer look. Yes, they were hair bobbles. The elastic was pink. And surely horses in a show should have something a little bit more discreet than – what the hell were those plastic bobbly bits meant to be? They were pink like the elastic, and had a white marshmallow-y face on them. The pink was extra vivid under the overcast sky. He readjusted his glasses. The face appeared to be that of a white… was that meant to be a cat? … a white whatever with a pink ribbon over its left ear. Words bent around the edges of each bobble…

"…'Hello Kitty'?"

Draco was leaning closer now, too. His cheeks grew spots of pink that matched the elastic, although Harry would have bitten out his tongue before telling Malfoy that.

"What in Merlin's name have you inflicted on my horse, Lovegood?"

Simon's eyes opened. His head raised.

Luna kissed Simon in the centre of his forehead where the hair swirled outwards. "Doesn't he look sweet with all the Hello Kitty bobbles?"

"No. He looks like a bloody idiot. He's a boy horse – boy horses shouldn't wear Hello Kitty hair bobbles. You've Lockharted him!"

Simon put the back hoof, which had been tilted at rest, firmly on the ground.

"I don't think he likes your tone," Harry said.

"Well, I don't think he likes being made a laughing stock."

Luna patted Simon's cheek affectionately. "He loves Hello Kitty. Don't you, Simon? You look quite darling."

Snuffles sat back, tongue lolling in canine amusement. Harry passed a hand across his mouth just long enough to hide his own smile.

Simon didn't seem to mind Hello Kitty. Or looking quite darling. But he laid back his ears as Draco took out his wand.

"Hush, Simon," Draco said. "This is for your own good."

Simon's ears remained back, but he kept still as Draco swished his wand. There was a green and silver spark that touched between the horse's ears and then bounced down the crest from plait to plait before leaping into the air above Simon's withers and disappearing.

The plaits remained, coiled up on themselves, but the pink had gone.

Not so the bobbles.

Harry peered closer. "Er… Malfoy… were you wanting to get rid of the cuteness factor? Because you didn't, um, succeed. Not quite, anyhow."

Draco leaned forwards and squinted.

"Blast. Those Hello Kitty symbols must be dreadfully powerful to stand up to that spell…"

The elastic was now green and where there had been a pillowy white cat face on a pink background was now a silver snake on a green background. The snake had eyelashes and had kept the bow, which was now Slytherin green. Around the edges of the bobbles were the words Hi Hissy.

Harry grinned.

"It's cute, Slytherin style."

Draco was still scowling. "Well, at least the colour is more Simon. He's a very Slytherin sort of a horse."

"Rot," said Harry. "He's the bravest horse ever – he's got to be a Gryffindor."

"He's capable of thought process. That makes him a Slytherin."

"No, it makes him a Ravenclaw," Luna put in crossly. She didn't seem to like the Hi Hissy. Something was bothering her, anyway. Her shoulders sagged as she regarded Simon, who didn't seem to care what colour or manner of decoration he was wearing. "And I've got to get down to see Professor Dumbledore to get a certain key. You two going to stay up here?"

"No, I'm hungry," Draco said. "Hopefully the werewolf will be busy with something else by now – last thing I want is him hassling me with questions about where I was last night."

"Well, he's a professor. It is his business," Luna said reasonably, while Snuffles' ears shifted to a slightly piqued angle. Harry patted him on the head, hoping Draco wasn't going to say anything too nasty about Remus in front of Sirius.

"I know. But it should be his business when I say it is," Draco replied, grinning wryly. "Oh, what it is to be me and shackled by the rules of mere mortals…"

"The pain, the pain, the pain of it all," Harry supplied in his driest voice, as Snuffles sneezed. "I'll stay up here for a bit – Lupin's more likely to try me for answers – he's not daft and he won't want to stir up the Slytherin Republic by persecuting you."

Draco perked up at the thought. "I knew there were benefits to having to cope with calling everyone 'Comrade'. I could be a martyr… That'd be brilliant. Come on, Lovegood. Potter – you're not hungry?"

"I bought a chicken roll with me."

"Hmm. Enjoy, Potter."

"Bye, Harry."

"Bye." Harry watched them go. His brief good mood evaporated before they'd reached the bottom of the hill.

"Well," he said to Simon, "I don't think green and silver is really you. I hope you don't mind if I…?"

He twitched his wand and sent a variation on Draco's spell skipping down Simon's crest from poll to withers.

"Much better."

Cute little golden lions waved to him from red bobbles. Each lion was wearing sunglasses and a toothy grin. Harry smiled with satisfaction as he read the new phrase Yo Leo.

Simon shook his head. Then, seeing Harry handy, rubbed his head up and down on Harry until the itch was satisfied. The plait in the forelock had been knocked loose. Hoping Luna wouldn't see this as some form of treachery, Harry undid it and fluffed out the forelock, parting it so it fell in front of the horse's ears and down in slightly wavy curtains either side of the dark eyes. "There. Much more you."

Simon didn't really suit plaits. While it showed off the elegant curve of his neck to advantage, his nose was a little too coarse. Simon seemed happier to have his forelock back hanging down, and showed his appreciation by treating Harry like a scratching post again.

It wasn't very comfortable. Harry pushed the bony head away then patted Simon's nose and stared off at the hills behind the castle, wondering if he should saddle up Simon and ride off to check out the barrier over there. It might be better than double Transfigurations… but not if McGonagall transfigured him into a pocket watch to remind him to get to class on time.

Shame. It was a warm day, even if it looked like it might rain later on. Harry left the cover off Simon and sauntered back to the castle. He'd still not worked out what it was that was bothering him.

ooOOoo