Summary: The students are given projects where Purebloods must learn more about the Muggle world. Hermione is paired up with Draco, and the two must learn to overcome their differences as well as clean a bathroom … without magic.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Harry Potter. I also do not own any of the cleaning products that I have mentioned in my story.
Written for the contest at the forum: Third Floor CorridorRequirements:
- Must be written specifically for this contest
- Must be between 500 and 5000 words
- Keep it clean.
- Links only.
How to Clean a Bathroom Without Magic:
"Why are they giving us a project?" grumbled Ronald Weasley to his two best friends, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter, over breakfast in the Great Hall.
"Honestly Ron, didn't you listen?" said Hermione, rolling her eyes at her redheaded friend.
Harry laughed, "Hermione, you know that Ron never listens when there's food in front of him!" he said, teasing his best friend.
"Because of the war that just happened a couple of months ago, we need to unify the school," she said, sounding as if she was reading off a piece of parchment.
"You sound like McGonagall," Ron said, sticking out his tongue at her.
"And why should we have to learn about how Muggles do everyday activities and stuff? We have magic still," Ron added.
"This project is to help Purebloods – as well as all wizards and witches - to learn more about the Muggle World. We never know what is going to happen, so it's best if we're prepared. I think the project is a wonderful idea!" she said, beaming with anticipation.
"This project is absolutely dreadful!" said Hermione, hitting her head against the table.
Harry grinned and whispered to her, "I thought you said it was wonderful just a couple of hours ago."
"That was before I found out that we were going to work in pairs. And that was also before I found out my task!" Hermione said, pouting.
"It can't be too bad," said Harry, reaching over to take the slip of paper from Hermione's hands.
He read it and his eyes widened. He placed the paper back into Hermione's clenched fist and sighed sympathetically.
"Gosh, 'Mione, good luck," he said, patting her shoulder.
Hermione gave another moan before she took a look at her paper again.
Hermione Granger, GryffindorPartner: Draco Malfoy
Task: Clean a bathroom without using magic
Extra Credit: Learn how to use a television
It was going to be a long day, working with Draco Malfoy.
Hermione took a glance across the room and saw Draco Malfoy, her 'enemy', staring straight back at her. He gave her a smirk, followed by a glare, before getting up and leaving the room.
Hermione watched as he left the room. She still had mixed feelings about him.
The war between the Light and Dark side, though it occurred months ago, was still fresh in everybody's minds. It had been a bloody war, fought at Hogwarts. In the end, the Light side triumphed. Harry had killed Voldemort, and many of the Death Eaters had died. Lucius Malfoy, Draco's father, being one of them. A lot of the Slytherin students helped fight on the Dark side, and some were thrown into Azkaban. Under-age students were tried in the Wizarding Court, and most were on prohibition, meaning they could go to Azkaban if one offense was made.
Hermione glanced curiously at Malfoy, before shrugging her shoulders, and looking away.
"Granger, you're late," scowled Malfoy, sitting on one of the sinks in the third corridor's bathroom.
Hermione scowled back, but was relieved that he no longer called her a Mudblood anymore.
Suddenly, a voice rang out from behind them saying, "You're both on time. Good."
Hermione spun around and found herself looking at Professor McGonagall, the Gryffindor's Head of House.
"The cleaning supplies are all in this bucket. I will need you to clean each toilet stall, and each sink. When I come back, I hope it will be sparkling clean. I paired up the both of you because you two are likely going to be Head Boy and Head Girl next year. I want to see how well the two of you work together. Also, I know that Ms. Granger has experience with the Muggle lifestyle, so I am sure that she will be a major help to you, Mr. Malfoy. You have the whole day," she said, before leaving the two of them alone.
"So," said Draco, after a minute of silence, "Get to work."
Hermione looked aghast.
"No way! You are going to help me clean this bathroom."
"You're the Muggle-lover. It makes perfect sense to me that you clean it," he said, sneering down at her.
"Draco Malfoy, you clean this bathroom with me, or else I will tell Professor McGonagall that I did all of the work, thus leaving you with a zero for this project!" shouted Hermione, leaving Malfoy, and herself, shocked.
"Uh … fine," he said, not being able to come back with a retort.
Hermione huffed and bent down over the bucket, taking out a bunch of rubber gloves, mops, brooms, sponges, and bottles marked with 'Windex', 'Lysol', 'Febreeze', 'Oxy-Clean', etc. on them.
Malfoy joined her at the bucket and he wrinkled his nose, taking out a white stick. At the end of it was a sort of an angel's halo, except the bristles were poking outwards. He brought it to his nose, and his eyes widened in disgust.
"Sick!" he exclaimed, throwing it down.
Hermione couldn't help but giggle.
"Malfoy … that's … that's a … toilet cleaner brush!" she said, her shoulders shaking up and down.
Malfoy glared at Hermione.
"You think this is funny?" he said.
His eyes narrowed, and he picked up a can that read "Comet – cleanser with bleach!" and dumped it onto her head. He smirked.
"Now you look like a drowned beaver!"
Hermione gasped in outrage as she stared into the mirror and saw her brown curly hair dotted with white spots.
"How dare you!" she cried.
She picked up a tub of Clorox Bleach, opened it, and ran to Malfoy, who was preoccupied with looking at himself in the mirror, and dumped the bleach onto his perfect, most cherished, platinum blond hair.
He screamed. A truly girlish scream.
"My hair!" he yelled, "It's … it's … ruined!"
Hermione had to giggle.
His hair would be turning quite yellow by tomorrow.
Malfoy seethed with anger, but he forced himself not to smack the idiotic girl that was shaking with laughter in front of him.
"Let's just clean the stupid bathroom," he muttered, wanting to get this over with.
The less time he spent with the girl, the better.
Hermione looked surprised, but she comprised herself and stood up.
"You do the toilets, and I'll clean the sinks," she said.
Malfoy sneered, "How about you clean the toilets?"
Hermione rolled her eyes and pushed the toilet cleaner to his chest, "You do it."
He turned around and dejectedly headed towards the toilet stalls.
Hermione bent down and took out some rubber gloves, sponges, and Comet cleanser.
She hurried over to the rusty sinks that were encompassed with mold, and she wrinkled her nose.
Perhaps she should have traded with Malfoy. But then again, hearing Malfoy try not to barf, she decided that she had the better job.
Her mum had taught her how to clean a bathroom before, so Hermione had a bit of experience; however, she still wasn't sure if she could clean all four sinks.
Putting on a pair of yellow rubber gloves, Hermione dumped the bleach into the sink and began to scrub.
She could hear the sloshing of toilet water, and Hermione pretended that she was trying to polish Malfoy's face clean.
Slowly, the mold and rust came off.
After a couple of hours, the sinks were shining brightly.
Hermione smiled to herself, and decided to check on Malfoy's progression.
"What? You're still working on the first toilet?" she asked.
"You try to clean a toilet, Granger," said Malfoy.
Hermione entered the toilet stall and saw that Malfoy had done absolutely nothing in the past couple of hours.
"Argh!" she cried.
"Do I have to show you how everything is done?" she asked, throwing up her hands in exasperation.
She walked over to the bucket and took out some more rubber cloves, Clorox, a toilet plunger, and a sponge.
"Here, you need to pour the bleach into the toilet first," she instructed him.
Draco frowned, but followed her instructions.
"Put on these gloves."
"Stick the toilet cleaner thing into the toilet and scrub."
"What? Scrub? No way! I am a Malfoy. I still have some dignity. I won't do that! You're a Mudblood. You do it!" protested Malfoy.
Hermione smacked Malfoy in the head and said, "Don't you dare say that again. You are going to do it!"
Malfoy gingerly stuck the toilet scrubber into the toilet and began to scrub. He closed his eyes.
"Open your eyes! You need to see what you are scrubbing!"
Malfoy swallowed, "This is disgusting."
Hermione smirked, "Not as disgusting as your face."
Malfoy took out the toilet cleanser, and put it into Hermione's face. It was dripping with … disgusting bits and pieces of stuff that made Hermione want to puke.
"Put that down!" she commanded him.
He rolled his eyes.
"Flush the toilet. You're done with this one now. You have three more to go."
"Three? Why can't we just use magic? I have my wand. We can just charm a-"
Hermione cut him off.
"You know that Professor McGonagall can tell when magic has been used. And anyway, the point of this project is to get a taste of Muggle life!"
"Yeah, but … who knew how close of a taste we'd get," he said, his face grimacing.
Hermione had to smile.
Wait; did she just smile at one of her enemy's joke?
It must be from all that chlorine.
"You finish up the toilets. I'll clean the floor," Hermione muttered.
As Hermione began to mop the floor, Malfoy said aloud, "You know, I thought Muggles had it easy. I actually feel sorry for them now. Who knew they'd have to hand clean their own bathroom? This sucks!"
"Is Draco Malfoy actually sympathizing with the Muggles?" asked Hermione, raising one eyebrow.
"No! But you have to admit, they do have it hard without magic. I don't think I could ever do this again."
Hermione nodded her head thoughtfully, "I know what you mean."
"Did you just agree with me?"
"Shut up!"
After cleaning the floor, Hermione waxed it and polished it.
"There, all clean!"
"Should we paint the walls?" asked Draco, after he finished cleaning the last toilet.
Hermione stared up at the puke-green wallpaper.
"Nah, let's just leave it. Next time we enter this bathroom, we can just charm it a different color," said Hermione.
The two washed their hands.
Just as they were done, Professor McGonagall walked in.
"Finished already?" she asked them.
The two nodded.
"Was it successful?"
"Yeah."
"I guess so."
She smiled a small smile and began to inspect the bathroom from top to bottom.
After she was done, she came out and said, "Good. I give you both an O. Why don't you two wash up. You can decide if you want to work on your extra credit."
Malfoy and Hermione walked out of the bathroom.
"Do you want to?" she asked him quietly.
Malfoy shrugged.
"I've always wanted to see the magic box work."
Hermione giggled.
"Okay. Let's meet here in an hour. You need to wash your hair," she said.
"And so do you," he retorted playfully, sticking his tongue out at her.
"Are you ready?" asked Hermione.
Malfoy nodded.
"I feel much more refreshed," he said.
The two walked into a room that was empty except for a television and a sofa.
They sat down, as far away from one another as possible, and began to inspect the television.
"Do you know how it works?" asked Malfoy.
"Of course," said Hermione.
Malfoy bit his lip, "Uh, I don't know how."
Hermione swallowed her surprise and said, "It's easy. I'll show you."
She took the remote control and gave it to him.
"Push power to turn it on."
"Erm, where's that?" he asked her, after looking over the remote for a couple of minutes.
Hermione rolled her eyes.
"It's the biggest button," she patiently said to him, as if he was a baby.
He scowled, but his eyes brightened when he found the button.
The television turned on, and all at once, pictures began to move.
"Oh my gosh!" exclaimed Malfoy, running over to the television.
"It … it's like magic!" he said dreamily.
Hermione then said, "Now, to change the channels, you can either go up, or go down. Same goes for the volume."
After a few minutes, Malfoy had gotten the hang of it.
And he had settled on PBS kids, watching Barney the purple dinosaur.
Hermione laughed, but patted him on the head, "You really are a baby!"
Malfoy began to sneer, but all of a sudden, the 'I Love You' song came up and he immediately became enraptured.
When the two had been graded, and were walking to the Great Hall for dinner, Malfoy spoke up, "You tell anybody that I had fun and watched Barney … you're dead!"
Hermione grinned, "Okay."
He opened the door for her and said, "Later, beaver."
"Later, ferret," she retorted playfully.
She walked to the Gryffindor table and sat down next to Ron and Harry.
"Looks like you and the Ferret bonded," said Harry, his nose wrinkling with dislike.
"Yeah. You had fun with him?" added Ron.
Hermione looked up to see Malfoy staring back at her. His hair was bright yellow.
She laughed, "Let's just say, it was better than I expected."
The two shrugged and began to talk about Quidditch, but Hermione took one glance at Malfoy before eating her dinner.
In the morning, she couldn't stand him. Now, she thought he was tolerable – even funny. Perhaps a wonderful friendship would arise out of cleaning a bathroom … the Muggle way.
Finish