XIV. Cantrip

Percy did his rounds as he was on prefect duty. Well, no, actually he wasn't really on his rounds, as he didn't really, officially, need to do those until after curfew that day, but you could never know. He couldn't believe how much the level of Hogwarts must have sunken in the last few years. Everywhere someone did something against the rules, be it anything from wearing their uniform wrong (or not at all) up to fighting or making out in an alcove! Which was far too easily accessible for little first years, and he really didn't want those poor children to have to see something like that at such a young age. They'd be traumatized for live!

So he had logically and dutifully deduced points from those people and in some cases given detentions.

It was great to be a prefect.

He was actually walking to the library at the moment as he still needed some research materials for the charms essay that was due next week. He had already written half of it, but in his opinion it wasn't enough. At least not if he wanted that O, and he most certainly wanted it.

He nodded to Madame Pince as he entered Hogwarts library. He didn't need to ask anymore where to find which books. The library was like his second home while he was at school.

He walked leisurely through the rows and rows of nearly endless wisdom to the charms section and then stopped abruptly.

It was an unusual sight, that greeted Percy Weasley. It wasn't anything of the charms section itself that was unusual, but rather a certain person that sat right in the middle of it (at the only free table in that area), intently studying a book.

He walked closer, careful not to be seen by the person in question, and, indeed, it was his littlest brother, Ronald Bilius Weasley. First he thought, that maybe he was sleeping and only here so it looked as though he was learning, but no, his eyes were open and he was reading a charms book.

Huh.

You could see something new every day, he guessed. But he hadn't guessed that he'd see Ron in the library. At least not this soon in the year. Percy smiled to himself and left his brother to his work as he walked away with a smile on his face.

He could get that reading material tomorrow too. He wouldn't want to embarrass his little brother and scare him away from learning if he had really taken up to it ( he wasn't like Fred and George after all).

~oOo~

Draco sat down at the Slytherin table the next Friday morning after having had that fight with the weasel. The sad thing was, that Harry had, after having asked if they'd made up and heard the negative, continued with ignoring him. The blonde started fearing that he'd really have to shake hands with the red head if he wanted to stay friends with Harry.

This was totally unfair!

He'd known Harry now for years! They'd been friends for nearly half of their lives and the brunette wanted to put a Weasley on the same height as him? Not very likely.

He took a sip from his morning tea and started putting food on his plate. Of course he wanted to stay friends with Harry. There was no denying that, but still… Weasley had to take the first step. A Malfoy couldn't lower himself to do something like that! Especially since him, Harry and the Dark Lord himself were the only ones that knew about their friendship. Everyone else thought they'd only met on the Hogwarts Express.

He'd never hear the end of it. Not from his housemates. Or from uncle Sev. Or god beware from his father! He'd surely get a Howler for something like that! He chanced a glance at the Hufflepuff table were Harry was happily talking to some older boy and frowned .

He'd wait till Saturday and then try talking to Harry again. It was only one more day to wait for him, and one more for Harry to see, that Draco was in the right.

He grumbled into his tea, and returned his gaze to the plate of food in front of him as he realized that his classmates had become unusually quiet. He looked up to see what the sudden silence was about and realized that not only the Slytherin table had gone suspiciously silent, but the others had started quieting down too, as they noticed the green and silver tables stillness. And also, they were staring at him, weren't they?

He turned his sharp gaze to the unlucky person the was sitting right in front of him, which was Blaize Zabini, if he remembered correctly, who had gone slightly pale with Draco's attention. It had an interesting effect on the dark skinned boy.

A snicker rang through the hall and Draco's already present frown deepen. What the heck was going on? He decided to ask just that.

'Uhm… well, you know, Malfoy, it's just…'

'What?'Draco snapped at the poor stuttering Italian.

'Ummm, Draco?' Pansy piped up from next to him and he levelled his glare at her 'Maybe you should take a look in the mirror,' she said and held out one of those little mirrors girls carried around everywhere.

He looked at her sceptically but nonetheless took the offered item, with not a little bit of trepidation. Another snicker or two rang through the hall and a few people started talking again, though, quieter than before.

He opened the mirror and stared at his reflexion for a few seconds before a very manly, and not at all high pitched scream escaped him, about the same time as most of the Gryffindors started roaring with laughter. The loudest of them, a red head who was the youngest boy of the Weasley family.

~oOo~

Ron had been really close to a nervous breakdown, not knowing if it would succeed or not, but seeing Malfoy with neon pink hair, shrieking indignantly at the professors to remedy it and them being unable to, really lifted his spirits.

He had first considered about going to the twins for help, but then thought better of it. They were the prime suspects of any prank, and had they even only been suspected of having pulled it, knowing that Ron had been the culprit, there was no telling if they would snitch him or not.

He had also considered talking to Harry about it, but Harry still ignored him… and considering why he did, it mightn't be the best idea to ask him about pranking one of his friends. So he had taken his fate and sat down in the library searching for the right spell, to achieve what he wanted.

He had had to mix a charm, with a transfiguration to make it last, but it sounded harder than it actually was.

He'd only taken nearly one week to complete it! And it had even, to a certain amount, been fun to find out how to get this spell done, and then strategize about how to get Malfoy. Served him right, the git!

It had actually taken the blonde quite a few minutes to realize, that he was indeed not blonde anymore. At that point pretty much the whole hall had realized it already.

And the look on the blondes face when he had finally seen his reflexion! It was hilarious! If only he owned a camera, he could have taken a picture and hung the picture in his room, or maybe even put it in a photoalbum! "the worst moments of Malfoy's live, and my best" would have been its title. Gosh that would be awesome!

Though it wouldn't have been able to record sound. And the shriek that had left the… pinkett's (?) mouth after having realized his new haircolour! Gosh if there was a way to record that... the possibilities... he could so totally annoy the snobbish Slytherin with this till the end of time, he was sure.

Served him right for putting his family down like that! He didn't even know them, so how come he thought he could judge them?

He wondered absentmindedly if he'd ever spend that much time in the library for school... well, who knew? Maybe he'd have to for some other pranks.

His mom would be so proud of him. Or well, no, she most likely wouldn't. At least not about the outcome, but the fact that he'd been able to put together two relatively different spells? She'd be ecstatic, for sure!

Shame he couldn't tell anyone…

Also shame, that his happiness would be short-lived...

~oOo~

Draco couldn't believe that someone had managed to prank him like that!

The embarrassment! The shame! He hoped that his father would never hear of this, but he knew that that was close to impossible... someone surly had already told their parents, and from there one it was only a matter of time until the news would reach his family.

He wouldn't be able to look into his father's eyes again. Unless of course he found the culprit and would get his revenge.

So, who was the main suspect, Draco tried to think through his rage? It most likely wasn't a Slytherin... Actually it was pretty obviously a Gryffindor. Who else would get the stupid idea to turn his hair pink?!

His gazed zeroed in to the Weasley twins. Even he had already heard how those two were troublemakers and pranksters, that wouldn't even stop at a wealthy and influential family like the Malfoys, or with detentions nearly every day hanging over their heads.

But no, they did seem very amused at his predicament, but not more than the other students. Then who had it been?

His eyes travelled down the red and gold table until they found the smirking face of Ron Weasley... of course. Who else held a personal grudge against him? ... and would do something as juvenile as turning his hair pink...

Well... at least two could play that game.

His wanting to talk to Harry the coming weekend would just have to be postponed. Draco had research to do.

~oOo~

The next few days were quite interesting and amusing for pretty much all of Hogwarts, and it soon became clear who had been the one turning Draco Malfoy's hair pink, as him and Ron Weasley were the only ones to suffer from the coming pranks. Nobody suspected the twins anymore, as anyone knew that they weren't stupid enough to only prank the same two people again and again.

So Draco got his revenge.

How you may ask?

He somehow found out about Ron's fear of spiders and turned the boys rat into one and also enlarged it to make it about as big as a football. The scream that rang through the Gryffindor first year dorm could be heard even by the fat lady. And poor Ron was slightly traumatised for a while. Scabbers had to be moved to life with the twins...

After Ron had been able to calm down again he decided to take a page out of the twins book and exchanged Draco's ink with one that would vanish after a few hours. Draco had to rewrite quite a few essays and he really wasn't happy about that.

As a counter Draco made Ron have a phobia of lions for one day. And it really was embarrassing for someone from the house of the brave to be scared of their very own mascot.

It went on and on. The professors had first thought that the boys would settle their differences after a while and Dumbledore had said to let the boys be boys (much to Snape's chagrin) but even he started to worry after a while...

Harry as well was watching. It seemed, that the two boys were so engrossed in their pranking (and Harry had to admit as well, that some of those prank ideas were actually quite brilliant) that they had completely forgotten about him.

Harry was alright with it in a way. Those two needed to bond a bit and settle their differences... but he felt sort of left out at the moment. Also he had told both Draco and Ron that he wanted them to all get along and be friends. How could that be so hard? They'd gotten along well enough on the train, hadn't they?

Also he wanted to find out what the heck it was that Hagrid had gotten from that vault. Nearly a week had passed since they'd started the prank-war and enough was enough. He didn't want the professors to intervene and he wanted both boys' help in getting Tom's birthday present. And he wanted to play with them!

Harry pouted. Why did it feel like he sounded like Dudley all of a sudden? Tom had really gone and spoiled him too much.

Well... it was too late to do something about that now anyways. Tom liked him the way he was so it was alright he supposed. And Draco wasn't much better himself anyways... Anyways... what had he wanted to do again?

Harry stopped in his tracks and stared out of the window, where some Slytherins and Gryffindors were having a fight. That's right, he wanted to mend Draco and Ron's friendship! What was those two houses problem anyways? He really didn't understand that. Maybe they didn't as well... they should really just talk about that.

Maybe that was it? Maybe he should simply let those two talk about whatever their problems were. But it had to be somewhere where no one could interrupt or bother them. Well, no one would go to the third floor, would they? He should simply put them together into a room, until they got along again.

Harry smiled to himself, happy that he would soon have his two friends back, if everything went according to plan.

Now, he just had to tell Pansy and some Gryffindor, that they should tell their respectable housemate that he should meet Harry at, he looked at his watch, say at 5o'clock, on the third floor.

~oOo~

Ron happily skipped the stairs down to the third floor. Dean had told him that Harry wanted to meet him there! He was loathe to admit it, but he had completely forgotten about Harry. To his defence, he had had to come up with pranks against the blonde git, and be on the watch to not be pranked himself...

But now he could finally make some friends! Obviously Harry had decided that he liked Ron better than Malfoy, after all why else would he ask him to come if that wasn't the case.

He spotted Harry up ahead and waved merrily going over into a light jog to reach him sooner.

'Hey Harry, what up?' he asked happily receiving a big smile from the smaller boy.

'Ron! You won't believe what I just found! It's so awesome!' the brunette exclaimed taking Ron's hand and dragging him further into the dark corridors.

'Uhmm... Harry I think we really shouldn't be here... don't you remember what Dumbledore said at the feast?'

'Oh come on, don't be such a scaredy-cat,' Harry admonished while rolling his eyes. Really, they were in a school for children. Whatever it was that was here couldn't be so bad.

'Here it is!' he exclaimed as he rounded another dark corner and they came face to face with-

'Malfoy?!' 'Weasel?!' the two boys exclaimed at the same time, staring at each other for a few seconds. Then they turned their gazes on the brunette boy that was smiling far too innocently in Ron's opinion.

'What is the meaning of this, Harry,' Malfoy asked in a strained voice.

'Yeah, what's Malfoy doing here?!' Ron put in as well.

'Well, I thought since the two of you were fighting the whole time you should just talk it out for once. After all there's no real reason for you to fight,' Harry explained and they stared at him aghast.

'You can't be serious! There's no way I'm going to talk to him!' Ron exclaimed as Malfoy had a slightly betrayed look on his face.

Harry rolled his eyes again 'Of course you're going to talk.'

'No we are not!'

'Yes you are, as there won't be much else you will be able to do,' Harry said smiling again.

'What do you mean?' Draco asked, having found his tongue again. The smile Harry send them was slightly disturbing in Ron's opinion.

'Have a nice talk,' he sang and pushed both of them back.

Into a small, dark, stingy room.

The door closed and the lock clicked. Both boys stood there for a good second, staring at it with open mouths.

Draco was the first to gather himself again. He turned to the ginger haired boy, with the whole intention of shouting at him, when something in the corner of his eyes moved.

He turned around slowly and stared at the gigantic dog. It was lying on the floor, only a few metres away from him and Ron. And it had three heads...

Thankfully it was asleep.

Next to him Ron was taking a deep breath, staring angrily at the door, and was most likely about to shout, but Draco swiftly clamped his hand over the others mouth.

The angry glare was redirected and blue eyes were now glaring at him, but before the redhead could break free and doom the both of them Draco pointed to the dog.

He hadn't thought it was possible to pale this fast.

They both shared another glance, silently communicating to put a stop to their fighting for the moment. It was more important to get out of there alive!

The blonde reached for the doorhandle and tried to silently turn it, so that they could flee, but it seemed like Harry had locked it.

Bollocks!

'I can't hear you making uhup~' Harry sang from the other side of the door and a cold sweat broke out on both boys.

'Harry!' Draco whispered urgently as Ron looked at the dog to make sure it wouldn't attack suddenly, 'Harry let us out this instant!' he commanded and heard tutting from the other side.

'No way! You'll have to stay in there until you're friends again!' Harry complained.

'Please, there's a dog here!' Draco urged.

'So?' Harry countered.

'It's gigantic!' Ron whispered shakily

'So?'

'It has three heads!' both of them whispered at the same time and then looked behind them, to make sure the dog hadn't woken. It hadn't... yet...

'So?' Harry asked again haughtily.

'Harry, if you don't open up right now, we might get eaten!' Draco said again, and Ron knew Harry'd open up for that.

He was wrong.

'I don't care if you get eaten, or will be shredded to tiny little pieces! If you do not make up, I won't open the door. I've had it enough with your fighting, seriously!' Harry complained and both boys stared at the door in shock. Well, Draco knew that Harry had to be a bit weird (he was living with the dark lord after all) but still! Poor Ron was pretty much shocked to a stone statue by that.

It didn't seem like any words would come out of the redhead's mouth anytime soon...

'Alright, Wea-...Ron. I apologize for pranking you, and I forgive you for being stupid, friends?' He asked quickly and held out his hand to the redhead who shakily accepted it.

'Sure, same for me...' he said shakily after a meaningful look from the Slytherin. The lock clicked and the door opened to a smiling brunette.

'See? It wasn't that hard, was i- HOLY MERLIN'S UNDERPANTS! IT HAS THREE HEADS!' Harry exclaimed loudly startling the two boys, as well as waking the gigantic dog. The three boys hurriedly left the room and slammed the door shut, panting heavily from shock.

After a few seconds Harry turned to the other two and looked at them unbelievingly.

'Why didn't you tell me, that it had three heads?!' he exclaimed.

'We did!'

'I thought you were joking! Or lying, so you could get out of there without having to make up!'

'Well... now you know we didn't...' Draco threw in and Harry nodded solemnly. He mightn't have minded if they'd been chewed on a bit by some doggy, but being chewed on by that one wouldn't have ended well for his friends and he liked them better with all of their limbs intact, thank you very much.

'But what was he standing on...' the blonde mumbled gaining a disbelieving snort from Ron.

'What was he standing on? What was he standing on?! What does it matter?! It had three heads!' He exclaimed with a slightly hysterical edge to it.

Harry reached out and rubbed the poor lads back.

'I think it might have been a trapdoor,' Draco said, without paying the ginger any mind.

'Maybe it is guarding something?' the brunette asked and then his eyes lit up. Maybe that was where Tom's birthday present was? He'd totally have to research that.

But not now. He glanced at the still shaky Ron. First they'd go to the kitchens and have some hot chocolate.

And then he'd find out what was down under that trapdoor.

~oOo~

Harry,

I understand you are having a marvellous time at Hogwarts.

Do well in classes.

Greetings.

~oOo~

So, here's the next chapter, as I had promised about a month later! :D
I hope you liked it! :)

Should I continue with the letters between Harry and Tom? (Yes, that last part was Voldemort's reply :) ) Or maybe put some other letters in there too? What do you think? :)

Please comment! It's what makes my day and motivates me to write on ;) Especially with all the learning I need to do...

Asalways criticism is very welcome (as long as it's objective) and if you spot a mistake don't hesitate in telling me :)