Glorious Ineptitude

(A Side-Story shortly after Harry Potter and the Last True Pure Blood)

This entire thing came from a single line from 'Oh My Gods!',- a wonderful Pagan-centered comic strip by Shivian Bolaris that I purchased the instant the Omnibus became available. I highly recommend you buy it if you are open-minded. Much like the episode GERMS of Invader Zim came from the artist imagining the neurotic alien screaming in horror as he looked around him and saw microbes everywhere, the idea for this little snippet came from a single statement uttered in a single panel, which I will reveal at the end.

Sorry everyone – I have very little time for writing at the moment. I'll get back on track as soon as work allows.

Note: This story is over. I'm very sorry if you don't like it.

(Guest) awesome/(Guest) notaweseome: Please note the "The End" at the end of the last chapter. The story has ended as far as I am going to tell it. I very much appreciate your zeal in wanting to read more. I hope you can find some solace in my other works, and you are welcome to log in and talk to me about brainstorming more.

Ziana Sue: I am very disappointed that you read through an entire story that someone wrote and posted online entirely for free so that you could enjoy it, felt it was sufficiently good to read through all sixteen chapters, and then sent a review like that just because you were mad the story had been completed. It's exactly the same thing as saying all of my effort and planning was wasted because of two little words at the end you don't like. Shame on you. Honestly. Rest assured this small continuation is not at all because of your comment. In fact, I reconsidered putting this up just because you reviewed that way - I didn't want to give you the satisfaction of seeing the story continued. That's right; I nearly didn't post this because you can't read a story you obviously enjoyed enough to go through 46,282 words without deliberately saying something mean at the end. How does that make you feel? Someone seems to have missed basic politeness in Kindergarten.

Harry smiled benignly while Draco stormed around their rooms trying to find his brass cauldron. He hadn't stopped whining and raging at Harry since they'd gotten back from Potions class, which Harry had begun taking again so they had more time together, and Harry had made the mistake of 'helping'. The result was something Harry honestly found hilarious, but he was certain to be paying for it for a while. After all, Draco took very little with a grain of salt if it involved his appearance, so when the cauldron had overflowed with what appeared to be turquoise soap bubbles full of glitter and covered Draco completely Harry already knew he was in trouble no matter what the effects would be. As it turned out Harry thought the effects quite fetching and unique.

Draco thought otherwise. It would seem that Pure-Blood rearing had ruined the youngest Malfoy on anything 'new' in terms of fashion; wearing deliberately outdated and inconvenient clothes was a Wizardkind trait by and large and those raised in the ways of tradition were strictly against anything too modern. This meant that the blue, spiky hair Draco had earned as a result of Harry's latest potions catastrophe wasn't staying long; which was very sad as it actually looked quite good on the pale, blue-eyed and admittedly fuming wizard, especially with his eyes flashing and his cheeks all pink from anger.

"-and who the bloody hell mixes powdered Añil and Flobborworm Mucus in the first place!? Those with the Puffer-fish Eyes and- why aren't you helping me you idiot?" Draco paused in storming around to throw something at the staring Naga.

Harry caught it with his Seeker's reflexes and it only made Draco scowl harder at him. Harry didn't want Draco any madder, so he nonchalantly put the small oak box that was apparently full of bells on his head and balanced it there. It didn't seem to make things worse, but while those things normally helped calm Draco down this only seemed to annoy him. Draco was clearly quite furious.

"Help me find my cauldron!" The Slytherin demanded hotly and threw something else, which made Harry drop the box of bells, which promptly rolled out and all over the floor. "And pick those up!" he snapped as he turned to keep looking.

"I don't understand what you're so angry about," Harry said, obediently picking up varying sizes of silver, copper and brass bells ad setting them neatly back inside the box. The Gryffindor paused when he lifted a silver bell that clearly had a ball inside it, but when he shook it there was no sound. He tried again, gave up and put it away. "You look quite good with your hair that light blue color. Your eyes are brighter-"

"Shut up," Draco hissed icily as he tore open another box and rummaged through it. "Shut up and find my cauldron so I can fix this mess you've got me into. Do you have any idea how inappropriate unnatural hair colors are to a Slytherin? I may as well be wearing a 'Disown Me' sign! So help me, Potter, my Father had better not hear of this."

"Please," Harry snorted, now starting to look as well. "I could say a lot of things about your dad, but he wouldn't disown you unless it was to save your life, and then only in writing. He didn't do it over us dating-"

Draco shot him a decidedly evil look.

'-courting, and he won't do it over this. Why is it so bad when you can just fix it anyway?"

"Pure-Bloods don't DO this sort of thing," Draco whined and moved on to another box. "It's… it isn't natural."

"Traditionalist thing, is it? Too Muggle for you?" Harry had meant this to be teasing, but Draco growled and sat down on the floor to fret, arms crossed.

He honestly looked a little ashamed of himself.

"Yes, alright?" he admitted. "I know it's bigoted and ridiculous and you'll probably lecture me about it later, but dying your hair unnatural colors is a Muggle thing unless you have the in-born ability like Lupin's son and I want it off me! You'll have to give me more than a few months to get past seventeen years of Traditionalist raising. I'm trying not to be bothered by it, but I still feel filthy." He waited a moment for Harry to start reprimanding him about his reaction. "Well!?" he pressed anxiously as Harry continued to stare at him. "Say something!"

Just as Harry prepared to do so the door to their rooms opened and Ron came in.

"Oi, Malfoy, what's all this about-" Ron began, then made a gagging sound as a book hit in square in the stomach.

"Get OUT!" Draco snarled. "I only gave you the password on the agreement you wouldn't come in unannounced, Weasley!"

Ron came in anyway, wand up in the event more things were thrown at him, and Hermione followed closely behind. "Mate, I already have to put up with 'Mione throwing books at me-"

"I do not THROW them," she argued snapped.

"-so I'm not about to put up with your pet snake doing it too," Ron finished.

"Ron," Harry sighed, "First of all; I'm his pet snake. Second, give him a break. He's had a bad day, and it's been established that it's all my fault. Why are you two here anyway?"

Hermione held out a vial of something a gentle amber color that looked like essential oil. Draco instantly stopped trying to hide behind the Naga and leapt for it, but she pulled it back. "I made this in third year after Lavender had a bit of an accident on Halloween and the dye wouldn't come out of her hair. I assume you know what it is?"

"Give it here, then!" Draco whined. "That takes two days to brew, and I don't want to walk around like this that long!"

Hermione tossed it to Harry, who looked a bit confused. "What are you paying at?' he asked her.

She ignored him and pointed a finger at Draco. "We know Harry a bit better than you do, and I want you to think for a moment about how he looked after the potion came off and saw you with blue hair, Malfoy. What did he look like?"

Draco growled at her. "I don't know, I was rather preoccupied panicking, Granger."

"I remember," Ron snickered. "It was the same look he gives treacle tart on Christmas morning."

Draco looked at Harry in surprise, but the Naga quickly decided to look at something else to disguise the extra red on his face from the Slytherin's view. "Have I mentioned," he said fondly, "that you are my favorite friend, Hermione?"

Hermione continued to ignore Harry. "I will let you have that potion only if you swear solemnly that you will not use it until at least seven tomorrow morning."

"But-" Draco began.

"And I'm letting Harry hold it because I don't trust you not to sneak it," she said bluntly. "I am saving you two days of brewing and looking like that while you wait in exchange for letting Harry have some fun."

"That isn't fair!" Draco whined petulantly.

Hermione smiled. "It doesn't have to be. But it's my potion, so do you accept or not?"

The Slytherin stared meanly at her while he mulled it over. "Fine, you menace," he eventually agreed. "I won't use it until morning."

Hermione nodded. "Harry, you'll hold him to that?"

The Naga shrugged, but put the vial in one of his own little boxes and locked it. "I don't know, Hermione. He's pretty persuasive when he wants to be. I'll try, though."

Ron snorted. "He must be entirely convinced Muggle-Borns are evil, now."

"No, just that one in particular," Draco snapped, pointing at the bushy-haired brunette.

Hermione smiled at him. "Screw off, Smurf-Hair."

"There! Another one! She's the second Muggle-Born to call me that name. What the bloody hell is a Smurf anyway?" Draco demanded.

Harry sighed. "I'll tell you later."

With that, Ron and Hermione left to go about their own business. As they walked, Ron elbowed Hermione lightly in the side. "I know Puffer-fish eyes weren't even in the ingredients list for that potion, and neither of those two would pick up something that wasn't even on the list. Why'd you do that?"

Hermione pulled out a book and began to read as they walked, trusting Ron wouldn't let her run into anything. "He called me a Mudblood again. He had to be punished. And if I can get Harry an early birthday present at the same time; all the better."

Ron shook his head, steering her away from another student. "You're ever so slightly evil, aren't you?"

"Are you complaining?" she asked.

"As long as you don't direct it at me; no," Ron said simply.

That entire snippet came from the line, "Screw off, Smurf-Hair." Really, that was it. My creativity branches like a Dandelion sometimes, I swear.