Chapter 9

"So, who are you taking to the Yule Ball" Crabbe asked to his clone, mouth hanging open, brain overexerting itself.

"I don't know" Goyle answered, not with less effort.

We were all in the Slytherin common room. Dumbledore had the theory that if I watched how people really lived, I wouldn't mistake them for imposters anymore. I was forced, then, to leave the security and cleanliness of my private room to come live with Crabbe, Goyle and co.

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" I said.

"Who was that?" Crabbe screamed, waving his hands around as if he thought that by hitting the air, he was hitting me. Or something to that effect, because he then covered his whole face with his massive hand and stayed like that for a few seconds. Stupid, stupid.

"Me. Who else?

Crabbe and Goyle turned to look at me. After their brain processed the images that their eyes were seeing (nothing, a few minutes), Goyle spoke: "What do you mean by that, Draco?"

"Nothing at all" coincidentally, what was inside their heads.

"Hey! We heard that!" Crabbe said. I was going to have to do something with that damn hat.

"Did you understand it?"

"Y-yes!" Crabbe started blabbering. He had mastered the art of talking without saying anything at all. "Well, it doesn't matter. We are beating you up anyway!"

Long were the days when these two kissed the ground I walked on. Now that my father couldn't hear anything, they treated me like trash. Like a mudblood, imagine!

"Wait, wait" I tried to placate them, without much success. Placating an amoeba is impossible, so I imagine that is true for these two all the same.

They cracked their knuckles and picked me up with their dirty hands. They towered over my ferret body and wore a deranged smile.

"Now that you're poor and your father's an irrelevant no-name, there's nothing you can do to stop us!" Goyle said.

My fear was cleanly wiped away, substituted by anger. How… How dared they…?

How dared they say I was poor?!

"We prefer the term monetarily challenged, thank you very much"

"Leave him alone" Pansy said. Ah, Pansy. I knew she would be there to save me. Not to brag or anything, but I was sure she had a crush on me. "He's a ferret, he won't even get a date for the ball. He's just lashing out at you"

"He's what?" Crabbe mumbled.

"Lashing out. He's attacking you to… you know what, it doesn't matter" Pansy said. The two brutes left me on a table and continued to exercise their neuron by making incoherent sounds.

"What makes you think I won't have a date?" I asked Pansy, who had had a crush on me.

"Draco, you're a ferret. In other words, you're not hot anymore" well, at least she didn't call me the nasty word. "Plus, you're poor"

After adding Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy to Black's name, my hit list was growing exponentially.

"I will so find a date for the Yule Ball!" I screamed at her. In retrospect, screaming that in the middle of the common room, where all members of the house could hear me was a slight error in judgement on my part.

Not only did I eliminate all the Slytherins as possible candidates, but a few hours later I found that some fifth years had opened a wager, betting whether I would find a date or not, and they wouldn't let me join.

"You're a ferret, man, sorry. If you were a snake, at least you would be cool" one of them said. Yes, well, snakes don't have hair.

"I will go with you, Fer-Fer"

After catching my heart, which had left my chest as fast as a Firebolt, I turned to meet eyes with the crazy, ferret-loving girl. I didn't know her name, but in my defense, I didn't care.

"How… How are you inside the Slytherin common room? Aren't you in… a house which isn't Slytherin?"

The girl looked at me with starry eyes: "Anything for you, Fer-Fer"

I shuddered. Well, at least I had an option if worst came to worst. Which it wouldn't. Because I'm Draco Malfoy, the most attractive…! Well, not that. But the richest…! No, that either. The purebloodest…! Could a ferret be considered a pureblood?

I'm Draco Malfoy, the one with the silkiest hair in all of Hogwarts!"

"Malfoy, stop what you're doing at once!" McGonagall said, coming over to my table and my partially transformed turtle, which had a handle protruding out of its shell.

"Why, Mademoiselle?" I asked, a flower in my mouth. Any time was good for practicing the art of seduction.

McGonagall groaned and ripped the flower out of my mouth.

"Transform your turtle and stop that!" she said.

"Fine, fine" I grumbled, picking up my wand and casting the spell. The turtle yawned and then yawned again, but it didn't turn into a teacup.

"Very good, Crabbe!" McGonagall said a few metres away from me. "You finally managed to transform it!"

Crabbe, doing something I, the great Draco Malfoy can't? Impossible. He must have been an imposter and… No, no… Breathe, Malfoy, breathe.

The turtle yawned again and started munching on my hair.

"Do you want any help with that?" Granger appeared out of nowhere, holding a teacup in her hand.

What did she want? If being a mudblood wasn't bad enough, she had left me alone with Trevor when she 'adopted' me. I deeply disliked her.

"I'm fine"

"You just have to swish and flick" said Granger, ignoring me. Typical Granger behaviour.

I ignored her ignoring me, but after Goyle was congratulated by McGonagall for making the biggest teacup, I resolved to, maybe, listen to what she had to say. After swishing and flicking my wand, the turtle stopped yawning, as it had become a teacup.

A teacup with a shell, but a teacup, nonetheless.

"Why are you helping me, Granger? We aren't friends"

"Merlin, I hope not" she said. "Er, I mean… I felt bad about leaving you with Trevor and thought that it had maybe caused your 'imposter trauma', so I wanted to help you adapt to your new ferret life"

Wow. How nice.

"Are you sure you're a mudblood?"

Granger's eye twitched, but she continued smiling.

"Legilimens!"

I was with Granger inside a trunk, Moody frowning at us from the lid, his magical eye spinning happily.

"Now, I'm going to impose both of you!" Moody grinned.

"That doesn't mean what you think it means" Granger said, getting up. She then started droning on, explaining to Moody the different meanings of the word 'impose', and most importantly, how it didn't mean what he thought it meant. "What you want to say is that you're going to impersonate us"

Moody and Granger kept discussing the mysteries of the word 'impose', leaving me to want to kill myself. When I was looking at the wall, I catched a glimpse of something weird.

Snape's nose, protruding out of a fold in the wall, smelling everything that was happening inside the trunk that really was my mind.