The White Ferret

Author notes: This is set right after the summer after The Half Blood Prince. In this universe, Draco lowered his wand and came over to fight for the Order of The Phoenix.

This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

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Harry was startled out of sleep by a muffled WHUMP at his window. He sat up, blinking into the darkness and trying to put his fuzzied vision into focus. It sounded almost as if someone had thrown a balled up towel at the glass with some force.

Rolling out of bed, Harry grabbed for both his glasses and his wand. No, he couldn't do magic out of school, at least not before July 31^st, but being expelled was a much better option than being dead.

Carefully, he padded towards the window and slid it open. Hedwig had been sent to the Burrow with a letter to Ron just last night. Surely, she couldn't be back by now...

A sound of rushing wings, and Harry had to duck out of the way as a balled mass of feathers, beaks, and talons flew into his room. He counted no less than ten owls flying in a synchronized knot, each struggling to hold up a large wrapped bundle between them.

With a few soft hoots and much flapping, the owls negotiated a soft landing for themselves and the package. Then, one by one they zipped out of the open window again without so much as a pause for rest.

Only one stayed behind. A large tawny-colored eagle owl stood on top of the package and watched Harry with baleful yellow eyes, as if judging him. Finally, the owl extended his foot. Harry stepped forward, untied the message, and unrolled it. He immediately recognized the slanted, spidery writing of Dumbledore.

Harry,

I hope that this letter finds you well. An emergency situation has come up with the Order, and I will need you to keep him safe over the summer. Please think of it as... an extra credit assignment.

~ A. Dumbledore

Harry blinked and reread the letter, but it was just as vague and confusing as the first time around. Who was he? What was happening with the Order? Had they been attacked by the Dark forces?

He felt a familiar knot of frustration and worry grow in his throat. It was unfair that he sat here safe and sound while those he cared about were in danger. For all he knew, Lupin and the Weasleys could be out there fighting for their very lives at this moment while he got charged with an "extra credit assignment" from Dumbledore...

So it was with that thought in mind and a good amount of trepidation that Harry finally turned and examined the package.

What he had first thought of as wrapping paper proved to be a fabric cover instead, like the cover one would throw over a bird cage. Finding a tie at the top, he untied the knot and pulled the cover back with a flourish.

To his surprise, the fabric cover was in fact for a cage. Only instead of a rounded bird enclosure, this one was rectangle with a metal bottom. Several plastic shelves were hooked to the sides to produce ledges, and what looked like some sort of purple triangular hammock hung from the top.

And sitting on the bottom of the cage, half buried in a pile of newspaper shavings, was a pure white ferret.

Harry stepped back, raising his wand to point at the creature that was no creature at all. "Oh no... no, no, no..."

The pure white ferret blinked at the sudden light. Then, upon seeing Harry, drew back as well, a snarl exposing two very sharp canine teeth.

"Malfoy?!" Harry spat, in shock. What was Dumbledore thinking? He knew how much the two boys hated each other, and to bring him here in his house to - to--

Harry snatched up the note again, rereading it with disbelieving eyes. "He wants me to take care of you? You?!"

A sound very much like a high pitched growl came from Malfoy, and he backed himself into a corner of the cage with his hackles raised.

"What are you doing as a ferret, anyway?"

The sight of his archenemy shrinking away like the cowardly sneak that he was caused a jet of anger to bloom up within Harry. He had remembered vividly the first year when Malfoy simpered and whined when they were forced to go into the Forbidden Forest. Somehow, this memory got smashed together with Wormtail and his small watery eyes right after he transformed from Scabbers.

"What, did you cause too much trouble to the Order or something?" snapped Harry, and of course he received no answer. "Well if you think that I'm turning you back into a human, you can just forget it." It wasn't like he could do magic right now, anyway, but Malfoy didn't need to know that.

Harry turned his back on the ferret, heading towards his small writing desk in the corner of the room. He switched on the lamp there with an angry snap and started shuffling around for his parchment and quill.

Now coming out of his shock, his thoughts pulsed in an angry tempo. All during the school year, he had followed Dumbledore's wishes even against his own judgment. Even when Dumbledore had asked him to do the nearly unthinkable... feed him that horrible potion, Harry had done it. But to ask him to house his schoolyard enemy in his house - in his own room no less! - well Dumbledore had another thing coming.

The letter he scribbled down was very short and to the point, highlighting the fact he did not want a smelly ferret in his room. He ended the letter with an angry jab of his quill and folded it, making it ready for when Hedwig showed up.

Malfoy was still making disgruntled ferret sounds from the corner of his cage. He twitched this way and that, and making high pitched sounds in the back of his throat. Sounds that only increased in pitch and volume when Harry walked by to go and sit on his bed.

"Be quiet." he snapped. "You'll wake my aunt and uncle."

That seemed to be the wrong thing to say. Malfoy threw himself to the side of the cage with a rattling thump, screeching at the top of his little ferret lungs.

Harry cursed and threw the cover over his cage once more, but it did little to muffle the horrible sound of thumping and squealing. He threw a panicked look at the door, afraid that his uncle Vernon would come barging in at any moment... but the door remained closed. Perhaps they were too afraid to come in, because there was no way that they could not be hearing this racket...

"Malfoy! Malfoy! Shut up!" He took the cage and rattled it back and forth. The squealing stopped for all of ten seconds and then resumed again with even more force, now accompanied by a crashing that could only be a food bowl being thrown against the bars.

If Malfoy were a human right now, Harry could well imagine he would be in the middle of a giant temper tantrum. As it was, with him being a squeaky little weasel-thing, he could only mess up his own cage.

With a sigh of resignation, Harry went back to his bed and shoved his head under one of the pillows. At least his uncle wasn't charging up to his room, pounding on his door. He would just wait until Malfoy tired himself out and then tie him up into one of Dudley's oversized old socks or something.

Another loud crash and a whole other round of squealing caused Harry to tighten his grip around the pillow.

God, I have Malfoy in a cage in my bedroom. he thought. I'm sure there's a joke in there, somewhere.

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