Monday actually started well.

Breakfast with Neville, Arithmancy, then Care of Magical Creatures and lunch.

Everything was fine, but I knew that the last two lessons would be a horror.

Potions with Malfoy as a partner was bad before but after our argument on Saturday I expected the worst.


Malfoy glowered at me as I sat down in my seat next to him but he didn't say a word.

"Please resume your concentration on your potion, if you have any questions please come and see me.

This hour is very important for the potion as we have now reached the halfway point.

If it does not have the desired colour and consistency at the end of the lesson, you will not succeed in making the entire potion," the professor began the lesson and the murmuring started.

Only Malfoy and I worked silently side by side.

I was trying to crush a midnight berry when it slipped from under my knife and sped straight towards Malfoy.

He caught it expertly with one hand and I saw the anger boiling up in his face.

Before I could even apologise, he hissed at me.

"I warned you Mudblood.

Don't get in my way and yet you have the audacity to shoot at me with potion ingrediens.

And you're stupid too, it says squash, not crush".

What's the difference, please?

"Then do it yourself," I sneered back, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

And that's exactly what he did.

He took the berry between two of his fingers and squashed it with them.

The dark purple, almost black juice of the berry dripped into the cauldron and a drop ran down his finger.

"Take a good look at this Harper, because that's exactly how I'm going to crush you once I turn you into a berry. "

"Squash," I corrected him, grinning bossily.

He clearly didn't like the fact that I hadn't taken his death threat seriously and corrected him, because his jaw muscles stiffened as if he were gritting his teeth.

"Don't feel safe anywhere Harper, you really messed with the wrong guy," he squeezed out between his teeth.

"I've never said no to a good challenge," I retorted belligerently.

He didn't have a flippant answer, which put a smile on my face.

"Don't grin so stupid Harper, it makes you ugly."

"I'm sorry what?", I jerkily turned back to Malfoy.

"I told you not to grin so smugly."

I raised my eyebrows.

"And stir the bloody potion if you don't want to walk out of this lesson with a «dreadfull »".

I quickly grabbed the spoon and began to stir.

"Slow down, mountain troll," Malfoy hissed beside me and I stiffened my grip on the spoon.

Breathe in, short pause, breathe out.

Slower than before, I moved the spoon in the cauldron.

Malfoy gradually added some herbs he had cut and the potion turned from previous pale blue to a midnight blue in which we were reflected.

I saw my annoyed face with two strands of hair hanging out of my bun and Malfoy grinning stupidly.

"If I can't grin smugly, neither can you."

The smirk disappeared from his face and I saw him say something silently.

My lip reading was not good but I could guess and what he had said was definitely not nice.

For the rest of the lesson we didn't say a word to each other again.

When Professor Slughorn looked at our potion at the end of the lesson, he noted something on his parchment and said only a quick "Very nice" and then went on to the next cauldron.

I hated the lessons with Malfoy, he just got on my nerves. His arrogant expression alone was reason enough for a bad mood.

But he was the reason why I was going to finish this term with a good grade and therefore the reason why I had to get along with working with him.


Neville intercepted me right after class.

"How was it?"

"As lessons with Malfoy go, not much fun," I replied and we walked towards the library.

We had agreed at lunch to study together this afternoon.

Well, each of us studied for himself, but we sat together at the same table.

Since we had come out of class on time, the library was still empty and we sat down at one of the empty tables.

I was writing my Arithmancy essay that I had to turn in next lesson and Neville was meticulously working on assignments for Ancient Runes.

I was quite glad that I didn't have this subject because it looked quite hard.

Neville also seemed to be getting more and more desperate as he sighed more and more often.

At some point he put his quill down on the table.

"That will have to do for today, my head is smoking. I can't go on for another minute or I'll explode."

I chuckled slightly at the idea and closed my book too.

"Fancy a game of chess?", Neville asked me and I nodded in agreement.

"I haven't played in quite a while, I'm probably not a worthy opponent," I confessed to him as he placed the board on the table in front of me.

"That doesn't matter, I'm not good either," he laughed back and began to place the pieces on the squares.


We both didn't do too badly then, but Neville was more practised than me and was therefore in the lead when we were approached from the side.

"Look at you Longbottom, finally got yourself a little girlfriend to match your intellect?"

Malfoy stood beside us surrounded by his entourage.

"Chess?" he continued. "Isn't that a bit high for you two, shouldn't you be playing with something easier, building blocks perhaps?"

Now he and his friends were laughing.

They were quite loud and from some corners a "shhh" could already be heard, which was to alert them that this was a library.

"Can't you just leave Malfoy?" Neville said annoyed but quietly.

But Malfoy and his friends seemed to have found fun in it and didn't even think of leaving us alone.

One of them raised his wand unnoticed and with one swipe he swept all our pieces off the board, again they all laughed.

Breathe in, pause for a moment, breathe out.

I would not be provoked, it was important that I remained calm and so did not give Malfoy any room to attack.

The pieces fell noisily to the floor and the librarian Madame Pince, lost her patience with the Sytherin group.

She sternly ordered them to move towards the exit and also ordered us out of the room after the other group had left.

Disgruntled, as we had done nothing wrong, we packed our things and decided to just sit down in the Great Hall.


"Malfoy really hasn't changed a bit," Neville began the conversation.

"Has he always been this obnoxious?" I wanted to know and Neville nodded.

"Sometimes more sometimes less but at the moment it's worse again.

Most people have calmed down after the war, except Malfoy apparently," he shrugged.

"Has he ever really hurt any of you?"

"I don't think so, at least nothing bad.

In first year he hit me a lot with a leg-hold curse but that wasn't that big of a deal.

His bulling actually mostly focused on Harry but now he seems to have found himself a less dangerous victim."

"You mean me," I finished the sentence Neville had only thought.

"He really picked the wrong one for that.

I'm more dangerous and stronger than he thinks.

Let him think he's better than me. I'd beat him in a fight. No problem."

I was a little offended that Neville just assumed Malfoy was stronger than me.

"Just because I'm smaller than him and a girl doesn't mean I can't fight at least as well, if not better."

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. The whole thing annoyed me more than I wanted to admit.

"I meant more that Harry is a dangerous victim because of his name.

If Malfoy only looks at him askance right now, Professor McGonnagal could kick him out of the school, without further ado" Neville defended himself, raising his hands defensively.

Now I felt guilty that I had misunderstood him so badly.

I just wasn't good with social interaction with peers who were well disposed towards me.

"Sorry, I'm way too quick to take things like that personally," I argued apologetically.

Neville smiled wryly and I hoped that this meant he accepted my apology.

"Next weekend is the Hogsmeade trip. All students from year three upwards get to go to the village near the school.

It's really nice there, there are lots of little shops and cafes to drink butterbeer in," Neville told me over dinner.

"Next Friday we get the grade for the Polyjuice Potion and ...", he started to falter.

I looked at him questioningly.

"And when ... well ... when ... I ... well," he blushed and couldn't get a full sentence out.

"Is everything all right, Neville?

Are you allergic to the food?" I asked him worriedly, but he just shook his head vigorously.

"Would you go with me?" he blurted out and I struggled to understand him.

When I understood what he wanted to tell me, I nodded and smiled at him.

Don't grin like that, it makes you ugly, I heard Malfoy say in my head and my smile disappeared.

Neville didn't seem to miss it, because he had already returned to his dinner and was chewing hard.


The next week and a half flew by, the lessons were exhausting and after school I studied a lot, actually always together with Neville.

We almost always hung out together and I don't think I've ever had a time in my life at school when I had as much fun as I did during that week and a half.

Sometimes I wondered if it could have been the same in Ilvermorny but every time I thought about it I realised that it was because Neville didn't know my whole truth and that's why I would keep it to myself.

Professor Sprout had an important appointment on friday, so our Herbology lesson would be cancelled.

Now only Potions stood between me and the weekend and the associated trip to Hogsmeade, which I was really looking forward to.

We would get the marks for our Polyjuice potion today and I was a little scared but thanks to Malfoy's help the mark probably wouldn't be too bad.


However, Professor Slughorn scared me even more when he told us that he wouldn't give the grade until we had tasted our potion ourselves.

Each with the other's hair in it.

I wasn't sure if the potion would work properly with my hair, because it was part cat hair after all and Malfoy would already be making a huge scene about turning into me anyway and I didn't even want to imagine what would happen if he was standing there with cat ears.

The potions of the groups in front of us were good, the transformations worked and Professor Slughorn was very pleased.

Only one potion from a Slytherin boy and a Gryffindor had too short an effect, which would certainly be deducted.

Now it was Malfoy's and my turn.

Reluctantly, I plucked out a hair and prayed to Merlin that everything would work out.

I dropped my hair into Malfoy's bubbling vessel and he did the same with his hair and my potion.

Disgusted, he looked into the glass and then at me.

I would have to start and with a big gulp I drank my glass.

It tasted like it smelled and I made a grimace.

My stomach rumbled and before I closed my eyes because everything was starting to spin, I saw Malfoy put his glass to his lips and drank it down.

When I opened my eyes again, I felt strange.

I looked down at myself and saw that my clothes were way too small.

My shirt, which had been tucked into the waistband of my skirt a minute ago, now hung just above my belly button.

The sleeves were stretching and I was glad that the Hogwarts skirts were very long, otherwise I would have had to worry about my exposed underwear.

I looked at my hands. Long snow-white, bony fingers and rather neat fingernails.

They were really beautiful hands, I noted.

I let my gaze wander to my left forearm.

I knew exactly what I was looking for there and now was the perfect opportunity to find out.

My sleeves had ridden up, revealing a small piece of a tattoo.

So indeed, he really was wearing the mark.

I resisted the urge to push the sleeve all the way up and instead looked in the direction Malfoy was standing a moment ago.

Only now, instead of Malfoy standing there, I could see myself.

A head shorter than me and unlike me, his clothes were far too big and hanging off him.

He looked up at me and eyed me carefully.

From his snide look, he didn't like looking at himself or he just didn't like knowing that it was me who looked like him.

I turned towards the professor who was still standing in front of our table and wanted to reflexively brush my hair aside but there was a hiss next to me and it was quite strange to hear his voice coming from my body.

"If you dare touch my hair, I will touch this body in places you will not like.

Because every time Longbottom touches you there, and I'm going to puke just thinking about it, you'll have to remember that I touched you there before".

I opened my eyes and looked from Malfoy to the professor and back but Professor Slughorn pretended not to hear anything and wrote something down.

It was like I was frozen because I couldn't get a word out and I couldn't move.

Malfoy cleared his throat and the professor looked at us.

In my excitement I had completely forgotten to be pleased that Malfoy's transformation had worked so well and that he didn't have cat ears or anything else cat-like about him.

Only his eyes didn't seem as green as mine always did.

I noticed that straight away because my eyes were always the only thing in my human form that still reminded me of the cat.

Because such green eyes were unusual in humans.

Professor Slughorn smiled.

"Very nice, excellent work you two, Outstanding."

That was worth the trouble and the hassle, that was the best mark I had ever got in Potions and that was despite or thanks to working with Malfoy.

"Thank you, Professor," I said, breaking free of my riged.

He held out two glasses with the counter potion bubbling in them so we wouldn't have to spend the next hour in each other's bodies.

We quickly drank the potion and I was glad to have my small delicate hands in front of me again.

It just felt so much better, only I felt noticeably smaller now that I had once been tall.

"I'm going to have to burn these clothes," were the first words Malfoy uttered.

I just left that remark in the room.

As strange as this experience was, I now had certainty, Malfoy was indeed wearing the Dark Mark and was therefore a Death Eater.

I was annoyed that I hadn't pulled up my sleeve to have a closer look.

I had thought I would be more afraid of it but I found it rather fascinating and would have liked to know the whole story behind it.

And I would find out.

Right after this lesson, I would study every book on the subject in the library, because the more I knew about it, the better I would be able to judge Malfoy.

Take every advantage you can get.