Framing Harmony

Framing Harmony

Chapter 4: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Owlery

"A well balanced person has a drink in both hands"

"That was something I never want to see again!" Gregory Pierce dragged himself through the portrait hole, images of four hundred pairs of pink fluffy-bunny bathers surely permanently burned to the back of his eyelids. "Hagrid in a Speedo is a vision I will never get over."

"At least you weren't sitting on a broom directly under Snape when it happened to you," Ginny Weasley said, shaking her head as if it would send away the mental image. She had dispelled the tieback charm she performed on her hair in an attempt to hide the fact she was in a rather small bikini with strategically placed rabbits. It hadn't really worked; at least Neville had stopped staring. Hermione Granger and Greg's sister Lucy had done much the same, though Lucy was in a plain boy-leg one piece and Hermione was in what appeared to be an eighteenth century bathing costume, though he couldn't be sure, they never showed them in Inside Sport. Greg absently flicked his wand to right a jumping record playing in the corner. Lucy always played music when she painted and it drove him nuts. She'd have his balls for earrings if he turned it off, and Greg preferred them where they were. Harry Potter- who was one of the few who was in board-shorts and had managed to tear off some fabric from the Quidditch stands to wear, wriggled straight through the crowd and up the dormitory stairs. It seemed pretty rude that he could get dressed; the Ravenclaws had decided they were going to turn it into a bubble-party. They had technically won, since Harry had rammed head first into the snitch trying to dive for cover. Greg smiled to himself and took hold of his sister's wand- the clothing was waterproof, the common room wasn't theirs, there was fun to be had. Greg and a few other Ravenclaws began filling the air with bubbles. A few Gryffindor giggles heralded their beginning too. Lavender Brown bounced around the common room, her wand flew around in her hand. Bubbles in the shape of dogs emerged in rainbow glory, chasing Greg's rat-shaped bubbles.

Unfortunately for Greg, though bathers were waterproof, book-bound parchment wasn't.

"GREG!" Hermione yelled out. She pulled her wand from among her possessions and aimed straight at her book, casting a quick drying charm and slamming the book closed. She gathered her legs and sat on the couch in a huff.

"I wish I'd had a camera for that look on Snape's face though, it was classic!" Ron sat down beside Hermione with an ungraceful thud. "I'd have paid even Crabbe for a picture of Malfoy's face.' He swatted at a bubble in the shape of a rat. It burst in a showed of green watery substance.

Greg couldn't stop himself laughing, emitting more bubbles in a long stream from the end of his wand.

"What do you think did it anyway? Do you think it was that McCallum kid?" Hermione asked. Always the little questioner.

Luna Lovegood, ready with an answer she was incredibly confident over, spoke up in a know-it-all tone; "ah, the South African Cotton Brownies strike again."

Greg chose, quite consciously, to ignore her.

"Malfoy's face probably would have been interesting. Mainly because the bikini would give away his little secret."

Greg would have been forgiven for believing the wand in his face was a joke. He would have been forgiven for assuming bubbles would soon fly out of the end straight at him. He would have been forgiven for thinking that over-serious look on Hermione's face was about to collapse into a fit of giggles. He could also have been forgiven for guessing what was really going to happen...

"Semper Ponerum!"

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"MCCALLUM!" Draco stormed through the Slytherin common room, knocking people and furniture out of the way at random. "McCallum, when I get my hands on you, you'll wish you were born Muggle! McCallum!"

"What?"

Draco did a full ninety-degree turn with a throat grip in one movement. "You did this you little bastard!"

Timothy McCallum looked as if he feared for his life. He had hold of Draco's tightening hands, and was wriggling feverishly. "Did what?"

Draco roared and grabbed at the nearest pair of bathers he could find. Crabbe winced as the fabric was dragged uncomfortably forward. "THIS!"

McCallum looked like he desperately wanted to laugh, but the pulsive shaking beneath Malfoy's fist suggested that his instinct to survive was in fact a lot stronger than any other force.

"I didn't do it, I swear. Draco, please, I swear I didn't do it!"

"I don't believe you," Draco said, the anger having shorted the raging circuit in his brain and switched to 'eye of the storm' mode. "In fact, I am going to give you thirty seconds before, not only will you wish that you were born Muggle, but you will wish that you and your entire family had never existed at all. In fact, if you don't tell me before I finish this sentence, when I'm done with you, I'll feed you to Millicent's pet cat!" Draco ignored the pleas of the boy as he tried to announce his innocence.

"Oh dear, I believe that..."

"Let him go Malfoy, he's not done anything wrong," Blaise said, sounding anxious and protective. He'd stripped one of the beds and now wore a sheet as a toga. The idea had merit. Draco released the boy with a hefty push.

"You aren't worth the trouble anyway."

"Draco, why would you think he did it, if he's wearing a bright pink skin suit?" Pansy Parkinson, who had opted for a sarong made of the finest serpent wall hanging, asked, a slightly shaky undertone in her voice.

"Because he's just doing it to look innocent, that's why. That's what I'd do. Why doesn't everyone just get dressed?"

Pansy checked the knot on the wall hanging she wore. She spoke quietly, "because all the clothes are gone."

"They're what?"

"All the clothes, they've all gone, each and every one of them."

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

Hermione tried one last thing to get up. She kicked up with her hips, bouncing Ron off her. She tried to kick up a leg, but Ginny had been sitting on it so heavily the circulation was cut off. Her other leg was occupied by Neville Longbottom so she had no hope. She had no idea what had come over her. She had just snapped. The book wasn't all that important anyway, not really. Yes she would have liked to see what the heck was going on, but it wasn't even like he'd smudged the ink.

"Let me go!" she cried, trying to pull her left arm from Harry's grasp. She was spread-eagled on the floor, with Ginny, Neville, Luna, Ron and Lucy pinning her down. Her wand had been long since taken away from her, and behind her thrashing head, Dean and Seamus were trying various pronunciations of finite incantatum to unstick Greg from the floor.

"We're not letting you go, Hermione, not until you tell us what in the name of Merlin's French knickers you were doing!" Ron yelled, retaking his place sitting heavily on her pelvis, her wand shaking violently in his hand. He was sitting the pointy part of her hips, and her skin ached.

"I don't know, something just came over me, I don't know what it was."

Ron slid off her, allowing Harry and he to swap positions. "Now Hermione, there must have been a reason."

Hermione never quite understood why, as much as she loved Ron, Harry was always the one who could wheedle almost anything out of her. She turned her head away from him. "My theory is it's something to do with that."

Harry turned his head to where she was facing, toward the fireplace. He turned his head back.

"Hermione, I..."

"Oh dear," a small, exhausted voice said from somewhere in the direction of the portrait hole, "If this is an inconvenient time, sir, Dobby could return later."

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

"All teachers to the North Tower stairs, immediately!" The sonorous charm echoed through Hogwarts's stone halls. Minerva McGonagall, yanking the inconvenient white bathing bonnet from her head as she ran, raced through the corridors. She ignored the questioning shouts of the Hufflepuffs she ran into. Her bathing costume, though most likely considered particularly racy in the seventeenth century, wouldn't be considered anything less than overdressing by most of the Hogwarts students' grandparents. She hadn't found her clothes, and when Dumbledore's announcement had come through, she hadn't even bothered to find any kind of covering. She regretted it somewhat, as the slowly cooling September air dropped quite a bit in the Hogwarts stone halls. She took hold of the first loose tapestry she could find, and wrapped it around herself as she approached the corridor beneath the North Tower. Professor Sprout was already there, as were Filch and Dumbledore. They were all staring dumbfounded at the long, spiraling stairs. Minerva followed their gaze, her eyes following the stairs up into the misty darkness. The midday sun gave the unearthly fog a yellow glow, before the fog went up beyond the light's reach.

"What is that?" she asked, weaving her way between the other professors.

"That remains to be seen." Dumbledore watched the mist studiously. Minerva watched too, swirling in a pattern like a whirlwind, moving around the windows. With a sudden musical howl, the fog dropped in thick, crystalline droplets. Minerva reached forward and took a handful. They were red, each and every one of them. She looked at the tiny stones in her hand.

"Rubies." She wriggled her palm so that the rubies turned in her hands. Almost as soon as she'd identified them, the rubies melted, slowly at first, and then in a sudden gush as the stairwell erupted into a waterfall of...

"Blood. Vampire blood if I'm not very much mistaken, and I'm usually not," Severus said coldly. He was the only occupant of the corridor with his nose not unattractively wrinkled. Minerva sniffed; the blood smell at least was a change from his hair.

She turned her hand over, studying the droplets as they left she hand and splashed onto the floor. "What is going on in this school?"

^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

"What do you mean gone?" Draco rushed past Pansy like a crazed Hippogriff, knocking her shoulder roughly. The knot in the tapestry sarong she wore came loose, and had dropped off before Draco had reached the stairs. Pansy retied it at her waist; with Blaise out of the picture there was no need to be subtle when it came to trying for Draco Malfoy.

"What are you staring at Zabini? Wishing you could have it all back, or are you just wondering what that little Gryffindor slut would look like in this?"

Blaise snorted, almost a sobbing snort, but he hid it well. "Oh come on Parkinson, my little sister looks better in a bikini, and she's fat."

"Yes," Pansy said, trying to sound less offended than she really was. No holds barred Zabini, "and she also looks like a Weasley. Was there something your mother wasn't telling you? Long business trips for the ministry perhaps?"

Blaise clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. "I'd kill you if you weren't a girl."

"Oh, you scared a girl would beat you?"

Blaise was turning an incredible shade of red; it clashed horribly with the wetsuit thing he was wearing. The tiny white rabbits, all adorned with glorious blue ribbons, fought for places to hide behind his knees.

"Are you two at it again?" Draco came down the stairs, looking dejected and tying himself in a sheet toga. Draco threw himself onto the nearest overstuffed chair to the boys' dorm corridor. "You're right, they're gone. What in the name of Merlin's balls is going on here?"

"Maybe the house-elves are back and took the clothes to wash them?" Millicent Bulstrode suggested, eating one of the chocolate bars she'd smuggled from Hogwarts's dwindling supplies. Pansy's stomach growled in protest.

"Don't mention house-elves, those shitty little vermin. I'm bloody starving! We'll all end up as fat as you if we live off the chocolate bars and things they're feeding us!"

"At least they are feeding us!" Draco said, rubbing his temples absently. "Could you please cover yourself up Parkinson, you're getting goose bumps."

Pansy frowned. "No I'm no... oh." Pansy pulled the hanging up over her chest, covering her 'goose bumps'.

"All I'm saying, Pansy, is that it wasn't me who ran off crying to a Gryffindor when we broke up." Blaise was never good at giving up unless the last word was his. It made for long conversations; she wasn't good at it either.

"Look who's talking, at least I didn't steal Granger's knickers!"

"Actually, that was Malfoy," Timothy McCallum offered with a smirk. A pillow slammed him in the side of the head.

"One more word out of you McCallum and I'll throw something sharper and much more deadly than a pillow at you." Draco groaned as he sank deeper into the chair, lost behind the thick Victorianesque green velvet back. "Could you please turn off that bloody music?"

Pansy turned toward Draco, not bothering to get up from her desk corner, giving Blaise a view he'd writhe over for days. "What music?"

"I'm surrounded by complete idiots. That bloody music; guitars, drums, violins, piano, some woman droning. It's so bloody loud it's giving me a headache!"

"Oh come now, Draco, there is no music." Pansy turned away, picking at her nails. This had worried her at first, him always talking about there being music, but now it was just normal. He complained all the time. He was going insane. His mother's side of the family obviously, the Blacks had been a load of Gryffindors after all. Pansy took her wand from where she'd stashed it and aimed absently at her fingernails, fading them through various shades of green, until Draco shoved his way past her again, took hold of a book that sat on the desk beside her and charged to his dorm, his two cronies following him like lost puppies.

"Draco!" Pansy yelled as she lost her balance. The tingling in her fingers grew to a piercing feeling before her nails erupted into dragon claws, teeth, ridges and various other draconic body-parts.

Imogen Taylor looked up from her book absently, pillows strategically placed on her body. "Don't you just hate when that happens?"

^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

Dumbledore pushed the door to his office closed and rattled the handle to be sure it was most definitely closed. "It seems we have a problem."

"You don't say." Professor McGonagall had been scrubbing at her hands for a while now, and though she'd gotten rid of every trace of the ruby liquid, she didn't seem convinced at all. "That fact would seem obvious, Albus, but what are we to do?"

"We could keep the students in their dorms until we figure it out, that way if it is a student doing it..."

"...like that McCallum boy..."

"... yes, as Professor Flitwick said, if it is the McCallum boy he can't do any more harm until we have rectified the problem."

Snape stood up, looming darkly over professor Sprout, who cowered in his shadow. "That's your solution to everything isn't it Sprout? 'There's a troll, all students to the dorms', 'there's a criminal loose, to the dorms' or 'there's a shortage of marmalade for my toast, to the bloody dorms!'"

"Now Severus if we fight among ourselves..."

"Oh shut up Flitwick you aren't much better. Every time something goes wrong, it has to be a Slytherin. Merlin forbid a Ravenclaw could do as much as leave a hair in the Great Hall! Why don't you blame Professor Eddington? She is the Defense against the Dark Arts teacher after all, aren't they all raging lunatics?"

McGonagall put down her cloth and looked pleadingly at her colleague. "Do you think it's some kind of dark force, Severus? Could You-Know-Who be behind this?"

"Changing our clothes into rabbit covered swimmers is a little petty for his master plan for taking over the world don't you think?" Snape sat back down. "The Dark Lord has been remarkably absent of late."

Dumbledore watched the little squabble as he twisted open a vanilla fudge from its wrapper. When Berty Bott had gotten into fudge there had been an uproar from almost everyone in the Wizarding world, and instead of "Every Flavor Fudge" there was born "Berty Bott's Fudge For All Occasions" which predicted what kind of fudge you'd like at that point and makes itself that flavor. Vanilla was predominant for Dumbledore, the peppermint tended to taste like Muggle toothpaste.

"It isn't Voldemort."

The heads of houses were silent with a collective cringe. "Albus, please don't do that."

"I know this because, not only is it not his style, but because if it were him, Harry Potter would be dead." Dumbledore leant back in his chair, reaching for fudge from the rather large box; Hazelnut I think, this time.

McGonagall closed the formerly red hand around the wrist of the other, whatever she would have said caught in a haze of confusion. "Then what is doing it?"

"That, I think," Dumbledore said, spitting the fudge into his hand, "will be the biggest test of them all." He looked down into his hand. Among the spit and a little vanilla fudge, were the crushed bits of a beetle. "Yes, this is indeed something beyond even me."

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

Harry flung himself off Hermione so fast he didn't really notice when he kicked Ginny in the shoulder. He shoved his glasses further up his nose and stood quickly. "Dobby! Dobby, no, wait!"

"Why does Harry Potter hold Hermione Granger so? Is this a kind of game sir?"

"Dobby, where have you been? Let me go!"

"Can we let her go, Harry?" Ginny asked, struggling against Hermione's wriggles and attempts to get out of her grasp. Harry answered with a dismissive gesture that Ginny had always taken as a yes. She released Hermione, who thanked her by knocking her over in the rush to get to Dobby. You're welcome, Hermione.

"Dobby did not know where else to go, sir."

Harry knelt down to Dobby's height. "It's alright, Dobby. Just tell us where you've been." Harry gestured to a cushion; Dobby looked at it, fluffed it, and put it back on an armchair.

"Dobby cannot say, sir."

Harry rubbed his face, a groan escaping him indicating he'd been through this all before. "Dobby, now that you are free you can say whatever you like."

Dobby hopped off the armchair and started to absently tidy up. "It is not that Dobby cannot say, sir, but that it is impossible for Dobby to say because Dobby does not know." He started to collect dishes and stack them on the nearest table. He blew carefully at any bubbles that came his way.

"Impossible?"

"Yes, sir. Dobby started to go into the Laundry, Sir, and came out in a very cold place with lots of mountains. Dobby almost froze to death, sir, and began immediately to apparate toward Hogwarts." Dobby closed some nearby books and handed them to Emma Dobbs, who thanked him quietly. Harry grabbed him by the back of his t-shirt; an old t-shirt of Dudley's Harry had given him for Christmas. Hermione had been annoyed, but Dobby was ecstatic.

"You aren't going anywhere, Dobby, until we find out what's going on."

"Dobby is sorry, sir, but it is close to dinner." Dobby snapped his fingers, and was gone, leaving Dudley's shirt behind.

"Ron, pass on the message: Students be warned, naked House-Elf on the loose."

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

Draco watched Professor Eddington drag the heavy looking trunk into the room. She was only a small woman, and looked like she'd snap with too much effort. She really didn't look old enough to be teaching, but then small people never did. Draco yawned and settled into his chair as Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom, ever chivalrous and insatiably dull, stood to help her. Draco bit into his apple. They'd received small meals now, house-elf standard. It was, however, very much on the small and of the least prepared variety. The common room found itself a little tidier too, though no clothes were cleaned. Draco had resorted to telling Crabbe to wash his robes for him. He'd done his usual screwed up job. Draco, for the first time in his life, envied Weasley. The lot of them always managed to be cleanly turned-out.

"Ah, thank you, boys. Now class today we'll be looking at a creature that nobody knows what..."

A hand shot up from the Gryffindor side of the room. Draco felt a brush along the side of his arm. He ignored it, probably Goyle pointing out Granger's openness to be laughed at. He wasn't in the mood.

"Professor, we did Bog..."

"In third year, I know. These are far worse than Boggarts, Miss Granger."

Draco rolled is eyes, he knew what was coming. "Bloody Mimickers!" Dark arts of the worst kind, unless they've been properly pacified; they'd tear anything to shreds just to take its form. "Vicious bastards".

"Yes, Mr. Malfoy, ten points to Slytherin, though the swearing could perhaps be done without. Today we are studying Mimickers- and don't worry, this has been pacified. Can anybody tell me where it is exactly?"

Mumbling filled the room as quite a few theories flew about the place. Lavender Brown squealed as her quill flew across the room. The Irish guy laughed loudly. Draco looked back at Professor Eddington. Something had caught his attention that was very amusing, and would give him the greatest amusement in the information. He raised his hand slowly. For once he wasn't surprised Granger hadn't noticed.

"Yes, Mr. Malfoy?"

"Hermione has it." The class was silent. All eyes were on him, including Hermione's. Potter and Weasley had their mouths open in something resembling a guppy-fish.

"What? She does have it!"

"Did-did you just call her Hermione?" Crabbe asked. His jaw almost as far open as Weasley's. Draco opened his mouth, and then closed it again. Had he just called her Hermione?

"Thank you, Mr. Malfoy, but you are quite incorrect," Professor Eddington said, tapping her foot impatiently.

Draco spluttered. He was not to be told he was wrong when he so clearly right! "Oh, I beg your pardon, Professor. She doesn't have it so much as she's wearing it." There was definitely something suspicious about that robe. It was too clean, too fresh, and the red bits were just too red. No one else had robes that clean. Hermione was gripping frantically at various parts of her outfit, as if she could wring the Mimicker out of her clothes. Draco was sure she was about to have a panic attack.

"I totally agree with you on that one, Malfoy, her robe is just far too fresh."

"Exactly! Thank you for noticing my... Hang on." Malfoy twisted in his chair to stare into a pair of murky green eyes.

"Hello."

"You!" Selena was staring back at him. She was dressed in a rumpled Ravenclaw uniform.

Professor Eddington grabbed him by the shoulder, "Mister Malfoy! I suggest you stop talking and pay attention! Miss Granger certainly does not have the Mimicker, and if you upset one of my students one more time, I'll send you to Professor Dumbledore!"

Granger squeaked from the other side of the room. "He-he's right, Professor. Y-you see?" She held her robes a little out from her chest. She whispered toward the front of the class, "I can't get it off."

"What do you mean you can't get it off? And besides, the Mimicker is right here..." Professor Eddington kicked open the chest and held out a sock. She was waiting, Draco knew, for another sock to appear right beside it. It didn't.

"I told you so," He said softly, though he couldn't manage to expel the hint of panic that had reached its way into his thoughts like an assassin in the night. He held his breath dead in his chest and waited. There was no movement from the class. Hermione's breathing grew raspy as she fought against her own panic. Something behind him was breathing onto his neck. "Have fun".

It was so sudden that had he not been watching her constantly Hermione would have been swallowed up by the mass of goop that formed around her face from her chest. The tattered and torn remains of her robes dropped onto the desk as she threw herself backward in an attempt to rid herself of the threat that was attached to her face. The class, previously frozen in shock but now well and truly alert, scattered as far from Hermione as any of them could manage. That was except Potter and Weasel... and Draco. Draco sat rooted to the spot. Shock, fear, morbid fascination, he didn't know. Maybe he wanted her to owe him something, but he picked up his Defense against the Dark Arts book and sprang across the classroom. Professor Eddington stood crammed into a corner, her arms folded across her chest. The hysterical screaming that ensued from the woman would have made a Banshee cringe.

"Would you go do something useful and get some bloody help? Go find Snape!" Draco pushed the Professor bodily toward the door, almost throwing her toward the rest of the class. Hermione was clawing at her face, trying to remove the now flesh colored blob from herself. Her raspy breathing had become the muffled sobs and squeals of panic, her fingers digging madly into the sides of her own face, missing the mimicker entirely as it merged horrifically into the shape of her features. Draco threw himself to his feet in front of her. He took hold of her clawing hands and wrenched them from her face. She screamed louder, the mingled pained sobs were almost too much for even Draco's stony heart to bear.

"Get away from her, Malfoy!" Potter protested as Hermione wrapped her fingers between his. Potter pushed at Draco until he fell backward from the sheer persistence.

"What the hell are you doing, Malfoy? She has to try and get it off!"

Draco squeezed the hands back as they dug there nails into his flesh. She at least then would know there was something that wasn't to be torn apart there with her. Ron the Weasel tried to tear Draco's hand from Hermione's, but Draco was on it first. He took hold of Ron's wrist and forced him to take hold of Hermione's hand. With a hand now free, Draco reached for his DADA book. Bringing it up toward Hermione and the mimicker, he began to slowly slide the book down her forehead. "It'll be ok, just don't struggle." A scream answered him back, a blood curdling and almost liquid scream. Blood began to drip down Hermione's torn robes.

"I said get away from her! What are you trying to do, break her nose so that she's easier to eat? Give it here we'll see what the book says. Get off her, Malfoy!" Draco slowly crept his hand around Hermione's back and laced his fingers into her hair, pulling her body toward him and holding her head just where he needed it to stay. Potter and Weasley both sprang into some kind of action. The first positive action he'd seen through the whole ordeal. Weasley took Hermione into a kind of hug from behind while Potter tried to remove Draco from her. All the while blood continued to seep through the gaps in the mimicker that were beginning to sprout hair.

"Potter you stupid shit, would you put that Merlin forsaken book back! That's it, Potter!" Draco went to reach for his wand. He remembered he left it on his desk and Potter was still trying to wrench his mangled friend from the only person there that could have any idea what to do. His father had kept a mimicker. It had wound up eating the family owl. And a House Elf. Draco wrenched his hand free of Potter's grip and took the best swing he could muster. The sound of bone crunching was almost as satisfying as the very heavy thunk that followed as Potter hit the floor.

"You fuck off too, Weasel, you aren't helping." Draco resumed his slow decent of the book down Hermione's forehead. As the book touched the now hairy and slightly pimply mimicker he instinctively pulled Hermione closer for a better grip. He could feel every sob as it fought its way through her body. She couldn't scream anymore, all that came were sickening gargles and drips of blood.

"Come on, you little bastard, eat it. Eat it damn it!" Malfoy poked the mimicker with the book until it moved down her face a little, but did not take to the book. It had taken to human flesh, and nothing was going to let it release until it had consumed all of its prey. Draco had to think fast or this new bout of heroism would be the shortest since Dimbold the Dense dived into a vat of Shrinking Solution to save his father whilst wearing full plate armor. Draco released the book and the back of Hermione's head, letting it sag limply onto his shoulder. She'd given up even trying to scream now and was crying morbidly, waiting for some inevitable ending. Draco ran a hand softly along the exposed part of her cheek, so as not to startle her when he completed his intent. As he reached the bridge of what was slowly becoming the mimicker's nose he pressed his fingers into the strange liquid. It felt like very thick porridge and satin all at once. A strange sensation.

"Malfoy? Are you doing what I think you're doing?" Weasley spoke from behind Hermione, rubbing her back reassuringly as she sobbed violently onto Draco's shoulder. A sudden sharp stabbing pain in his fingers caused his reflexes to react sharply as he hooked his fingers inside the mimicker and pulled it forward. Hermione finally let out a deathly scream as flesh tore from her face and a book was thrust between her and her attacker, shattering her nose.

"Her nose is going to be mangled, not that you'll notice the difference." Draco extracted his hand from the mimicker and surveyed the damage. The blood covering his torn flesh didn't seem to be all his, and he knew he didn't have brown eyebrows. For every squeak and moan Hermione could make in agony, the further Draco pushed the book to try and get it to take. Hermione started to panic again, thrashing her head wildly as her last source of oxygen disappeared. Draco put his left hand back behind her head, drawing their cheeks dangerously close as he whispered a warning of the pain that was to come, "Don't try and struggle."

Draco gave one last desperate push into the book. There were running footsteps behind them.

"Potter, Weasley, away." It was McGonagall. She managed what Draco could not, as the pain-in-the-arse twins retreated to where Draco assumed the rest of the class were still gathered. One last push, he told himself, just one more. Draco watched as the mimicker began to sprout parts of human lips and blue leather.

Yes! Come on now! Draco started carefully to pull the book forward into the mimicker. The sound of tearing paper and renewed screams told him his plan was working. The feeling of having his hand eaten alive told him it was working all too well. The pain was astounding, like he was having bits of him sucked from his bones. The pain was making him woozy, his vision was blurring slightly. He was barely aware of a Scottish drawl crying out, "Excidium." Bits of paper flew about everywhere; spatters of blood hit his face. The screaming stopped and something heavy, something human, fell against his chest and knocked him onto his back. The weight on top of him was almost empty. The weight wasn't breathing.

And yet still there was that Scottish voice, "Dear Merlin, no..."