Like Weasel, Like Ferret

Like Weasel, Like Ferret

"Hello, I'm home!" Draco yelled into the darkened corridor. "Is there anyone there?" He stepped into the stone entryway and walked into the kitchen, dragging his Hogwarts trunk behind him. "Lousy parents!" he complained. "Don't even make sure they're home to greet their only child back for the summer holiday." He scowled at the wall. "Tinky!!" he called.

A tiny house elf came bobbing into the kitchen, dressed in a cloth potato sack.

"Yes, sir, young master?" Tinky whispered.

"Take my trunk upstairs and unpack it for me," he ordered the elf, running his fingers through his silvery-blonde hair. The elf looked at the trunk then back at his master. The trunk had to be at least 2 times the size of Tinky. Draco could barely lift it.

"Well, get going!" Draco snapped. "Do you think I meant five hours from now? My uniform needs to be washed and pressed!"

Tinky whimpered and began to tug at the handles of the trunk. It didn't budge.

"Lousy elf!" Draco kicked Tinky who went flying across the room. Tinky sprang back up from the floor and, massaging his backside, limped back over to the trunk. He averted his tear-stained eyes from Draco's cold, gray ones. Draco picked up a red apple from the fruit bowl on the table and bit into it. He stared at it a second, chewing thoughtfully, and replaced the apple back into the basket. He walked into the adjacent room where there were three dart boards hanging on the wall. Draco had taken the liberty of pasting pictures of Ron, Hermione and Harry on each of the dartboards. He'd stolen that mudblood Creevey's camera and taken them one afternoon. After developing the pictures, he had chucked the camera into the lake, just to see Colin's reaction.

The metal darts glinted in the light from the sconces on the wall. Draco closed one eye, the tip of his tongue peeping from between his lips, and threw his first dart. It landed in Hermione's hair. Tinky stuck his face in the room watching his master throw the darts at the pictures of the red-haired boy Master called "Weasel". Draco's dart missed and thudded into the wall.

"Damn it! Dad's gonna kill me!" he yelled.

Tinky hadn't met this "Weasel", but he knew he had to be nice because Draco hated him; almost as much as "Scarhead". Tinky thought his master was a horrible, spoiled young boy who would come to as much "no-good" as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and Tinky wanted so much to punish his master. Then Draco wouldn't kick Tinky, or make him carry heavy parcels up the stairs, or make him reenact scenes from the play "Annie" for his entertainment (Draco was very fond of this play and cried every time Annie sat on the steps and sang "Maybe". Even though Draco found it amusing, Tinky didn't like singing in a high girly voice). Suddenly Tinky got an idea.

"Bull's-eye!" Draco crowed as the dart landed right between Ron's eyes.

*******

Draco woke up the next morning, later than usual, enjoying the fact that it was finally summer vacation. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling as he lay comfortably on his back. Strange, this didn't look like the ceiling in his room. His ceiling was carefully plastered smooth; this one was cracked in several places and had a grayish tinge to it. And, now that he looked around the room, it was like being inside of a furnace because everything was a bright orange.

"That ruddy Quidditch team color," Draco thought to himself. "The Chudley Cannons." He peeked under the covers. Hadn't he been wearing green pajama pants when he went to bed? And his hands were freckled!

Heart pounding, he sprinted across the room, nearly tripping over a pile of battered spell books in his haste. The bathroom door was closed. He pounded his freckled fist on it a few times. "Come on! Let me in!" he snarled; although it wasn't his voice that spoke. In fact it sounded a lot like Ron's.

"Ron! Really! Can't you wait your turn?" Ginny yelled from inside. There was the sound of the sink being turned on, then off, and Ginny opened the door with a disgruntled look on her face.

"I'm not Ron!" Draco yelled.

Ginny raised an eyebrow and placed a hand on his forehead. "Yes you are," she said reassuringly as if she were soothing a five-year-old who had had a nightmare. "Now why don't you go to bed and I'll have mum send you a cup of Identity-Crisis-Be-Gone."

"Grrrr!" Draco went into the bathroom and slammed the door on Ginny. There was a small mirror above the chipped sink and he looked into it, fingering his face; Ron's face. He was in Ron's body; there was no mistaking the red hair and freckles. Draco put the lid down on the toilet and sat on it putting his face in his hands. How could this have happened? Was he going to be like this forever? Damn! He didn't want to be stuck in this ugly, mud-blood-lover's body, a Weasley none the less, for the rest of his life! Then a though struck him. If he was in Ron's body, where was Ron?