When Enemies Interact

Chapter 10: The Polyjuice Potion.

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Hermione sighed deeply as she exited the Great Hall alone and began to head down to the dungeons for the usual Wednesday double Potions.

She and Draco would be testing their Polyjuice Potion today and she was feeling quite uneasy about the idea. She wasn't very sure if she could trust Draco, as she hadn't seen him in a situation like this or know how he would react, nor was she sure how she, herself would react after they had taken the Potion.

Taking the physical form of someone you liked as much as she liked Draco, was quite a big, let alone an awkward experience to go through. Yet, here she was, about to face it, not knowing what would happen during the process. She highly doubted that she would have a desire to take a peek down Draco's pants, like he had suggested when they were first given this assignment, but she didn't know what Draco would or wouldn't do.

She vaguely knew what teenage boys like him were like, with their hormones raging and she had noticed Draco staring at particular parts of her body, where his stare made her feel extremely uncomfortable. She greatly hoped he wouldn't attempt to touch, feel or look at any of those personal, private parts.

Silently, Hermione entered the virtually empty Potions dungeon and took a seat at her and Draco's usual table, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable; more so than she had before. She was wearing a pair of black, baggy pants she hadn't worn in ages, as Draco had literally begged her not to wear girly clothes, but these pants had always made her feel uncomfortable, as she was now. The uneasy thought of taking the form of a male had that effect on her, as well.

Slowly, the rest of the class filed in, all taking their seats and waiting anxiously for Snape to arrive. Some looked very much like Hermione felt, while others looked excited. Draco, however entered the dungeon looking neither uneasy or excited, but irritated and angry.

"I hate them all!" he burst out angrily, as he hastily took the seat beside Hermione. "All of them."

"Draco, who exactly does 'all of them' include?" Hermione asked, slightly alarmed.

"Crabbe and Goyle and the rest of the bloody Slytherins!" he snarled in reply. "They've all been asking me, all morning, why I've been hanging around with you more than them lately. Like that's any of their business. And just because I call you by your first name, doesn't mean I'm sleeping with you, like they seem to think. Their minds are totally mucked up!" His teeth were gritted and he had an expression of pure anger and annoyance on his face as he leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed.

"I definitely agree with you there, Draco, but you really should be careful. You don't want your father finding out you're spending most of your time with a Muggle-born - or should I say - a Mudblood." Hermione moved uncomfortably as the word "Mudblood" rolled off her tongue and Draco could sense a hint of pain in her voice as it did so. Draco felt a sudden feeling of guilt as her upset eyes bored into his own as she continued, her voice becoming quieter. "We don't want him finding out about the quarters we're sharing, although I have feeling at least someone will tell him, but we don't want to have him coming up to - to..." She couldn't find the courage to say it.

"Punish me," Draco finished for her with a slight shudder at the thought.

Hermione nodded, looking suddenly serious. "Promise me you'll be careful Draco."

Draco didn't get a chance to reply, as at that moment the door opened with a slam and Snape entered swiftly and made his way to the front of the room.

"Today class, as you should know," he said in his usual deadly cold tone, "we will be testing your Potions. Each of you will take a glass and dish out you Potion so your glass is half full. Take a strand of your partner's hair and add it to the Potion before you drink it. If all goes correctly, you will take the form of your partner for exactly an hour. At the end of the hour, you will turn back to your original form. I do not want anyone leaving the room until they are back to normal. Any questions?" No one moved.

Snape turned his gaze to Neville, who whimpered. "Might I add," he said. "That if all does not go correctly, you could blow up -" Neville gave a load, terrified squeak. "- or in some circumstances, if the hair added to your Potion is not human, you will take the form of something like a half human, half the species the hair belonged to. I might warn you, that if such a thing does occur, the transformation will last much longer." Neville whimpered again, looking absolutely terrified.

The class set to work, dishing the Potion into the glasses and adding their partner's hair. Hermione had been the one to dish out her and Draco's, before carefully pulling out a strand of her hair and dropping it into Draco's glass and handing it to him.

The potion hissed and turned the pretty colour of royal blue. Draco looked down at it for a moment, before pulling out a couple of strands of his own hair. Hermione held out her glass as he added it to it. Her potion hissed as well, but it turned emerald green instead of blue.

Hermione looked around and noticed most of the others drinking their potion. "Well," she said, "Here goes." Both of them raised their glasses, but Hermione stopped when it was halfway to her mouth and looked at the potion nervously, causing Draco to stop as well and look at her, confused.

"What?"

"I, er, have had a bad experience with Polyjuice Potion," she admitted quietly. Draco looked torn between interest and amusement. "I shouldn't tell you this, but in second year, Harry, Ron and I made this potion in secret and when I drank it, I found the hair I added hadn't been, well, it hadn't been human. You heard what Snape said; the Polyjuice Potion is only for human transformations. I turned into something like a - a she-cat." Draco snorted in amusement as he imagined Hermione with pointy ears, a tail and fur. "It's not funny," Hermione snapped indignantly. "It's humiliating."

"I can imagine," Draco said, forcing himself not to laugh. Hermione glared at him. "Look," he sighed, "I assure you that I am one hundred percent human and that was definitely my hair I added. I promise you that it was my hair. I felt myself pull it out."

Hermione looked back down at the potion in her hand and, after a moment, nodded. "Ok."

They raised their glasses once more, this time making it all the way to their mouths and drank the dreadful-tasting contents.

Almost at the same time, they doubled over and fell to their knees, spluttering. They both felt as though they were going to be sick, but the feeling past extremely quickly and they felt a burning sensation spread through their whole bodies. Their skin began to bubble like hot wax from a burning candle and they felt, and saw their features changing. Draco's become much more feminine, while Hermione's masculine.

Suddenly, almost as quickly as everything had started, everything stopped. Draco (in the form of Hermione) was on all fours, breathing heavily. While Hermione (in the form of Draco) was lying flat on her stomach, feeling the coldness of the stone seep through her clothes. Slowly, she rose into a kneeling position and turned to look at Draco.

It was like looking into a mirror for both of them. They stared back at each other, shock written all over their faces. Neither spoke or moved, they just continued to stare at each other.

Finally, Hermione cleared her throat. "This feels really ... weird," she said, feeling even stranger as she heard Draco's voice exit her mouth instead of hers.

Draco was studying his new features (Hermione's) rather closely and Hermione prayed that he wouldn't go looking under the clothes. "I must agree with you on that one, Hermione," he said absently. He was staring down at Hermione's breasts (now on him) and Hermione was getting close to wanting the slap him. "Don't these things get annoying?" he smirked, indicating them.

"Draco!" Hermione said, rather outraged. "They don't, no ... when you're used to them."

"Sorry," Draco said in a sarcastic tone. Hermione fidgeted a little as she sat back on her seat. "Uncomfortable?" he smirked.

"A bit," Hermione said irritably. "I'm just not used to having - having male body parts. Mind you, I hate wearing these pants; they make me so uncomfortable."

"Bulge in your way?" Draco smirked in amusement.

"I'm glad you're finding this experience amusing, Draco," Hermione spat, with a look mixed with annoyance and slight anger. "I for one, however, am not and don't you dare go looking or touching any of my private parts!"

"No need to get all quick-tempered with me, Hermione." Hermione just scowled in his direction. "I'm not going to look or touch anything, but I am male after all."

"You don't look very male to me at the moment."

"I wonder why."

The rest of the lesson passed almost uneventfully. In fact the only thing you could count as eventful was Neville and Crabbe having to dash to the hospital wing, looking terrifyingly monstrous as they had mixed their Potion incorrectly. Most of the students physical appearances had changed back into their own by the end of the lesson, while others were ordered by Snape not to leave the dungeon until they had.

Draco and Hermione were two of the few who had to stay back after the bell had rung to signal end of class, but they didn't have to wait long. Hermione was utterly relieved when she was back in her own form, but she felt rather guilty about her reaction at first. Exiting the dungeon behind Draco, she looked around to see the hallway around them empty.

"Draco," she said. Draco turned around to face her, an odd expression on his face. "I'm sorry about how I reacted. I should've handled it better. I guess I was just shocked as I'm not used to being in situations like that."

"I don't see how there was a need to apologise, Hermione," Draco said. "Now if you don't mind, I'd like to go to lunch - I'm starving."

He turned on his heel and continued out of the dungeon hallway, leaving Hermione staring, with a slight frown, at his retreating back. The way he had responded had been quite odd to Hermione. She sighed mentally and followed him, wondering what she would be eating for lunch.

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Hermione yawned as she ascended the staircase toward Draco and her quarters. The day was finally over and Hermione was quiet glad about it. She reached the portrait of Daniella (Iain wasn't there currently) and smiled.

"Hello Daniella," she said softly. Daniella smiled back at her.

"Quite a nice boyfriend you have, my dear," she said. "I've just been chatting with him and I must add that he is terribly gorgeous. I can see love in both your eyes at the mere name of the other."

"If you're talking about Draco, he's not my boyfriend and we are certainly not in love, Daniella," Hermione said as politely as she could. "There's nothing of the sort between us."

"My dear Hermione, follow your heart and you shall get what you want. You may say there is no love between you two now, but I dare say there will be in the near future. I always have been talented when it comes to Divination..."

Hermione just frowned at the young woman in the painting. "I've never really been one to believe in Divination, sorry Daniella," she said after a moment. "Petrificus." The portrait swung open and Hermione entered and headed up the stairs to find Draco sitting on the couch.

"Did Daniella say anything to you along the lines of us being in love?" she asked him as she sat down in one of the armchairs.

"In a way, yes," Draco replied, "but it was no different from what everyone else is saying. They all seem to think that we're deeply and madly in love, when naturally, we're not."

"It's amazing how something as little as us becoming friends and moving into the same quarters, can cause people to make so many false assumptions that encourages rumours to spread like wild fire," Hermione said.

"Why?" Draco said suddenly.

"Because people try to encourage others to believe untrue things in the most immature ways," Hermione said as if it were quite obvious.

"No, why is this happening to us?" Draco asked, his voice suddenly becoming slightly harsh. "We're supposed to be enemies, not sharing quarters like we are and most definitely not being suspected of being deeply in love. Today's Potion class seemed to make everything worse and now, everywhere I go I get some comment about us supposedly 'being together'." Hermione stared at him, surprised by his sudden outburst. "It all seems so wrong, just like you keep saying. I'm totally changing when it comes to the way I act, you're being all nice and sweet to me more often then I ever would've imagined you to, we've kissed and I'm falling in love with you. It's all very wrong and I don't understand why it is happening to us when it shouldn't be happening at all!" He took a deep, steady breath and looked away.

Silence followed this as Hermione gathered up her thoughts before speaking.

"You're right," she said rather spitefully. "You're totally right. This shouldn't be happening and we're the only ones that can stop or at least change it." She stood up and headed to her bedroom without a further comment. She really didn't know how to react to his little "speech". In a way, she felt slightly angry with him because, for some odd reason, a couple of his comments her feel upset and even tiny; as if he didn't really care about her. On another hand, she felt shocked by this sudden outburst. It was as though he had wanted to get it off his chest and it had caught her off guard, as well. He had been, of course, right.

She closed her door behind her, deep in thought. Why was this happening to them? Why did they have these feelings and what had made them appear? They'd only kissed once and suddenly, all she wanted him to do was kiss her again...

It was all so wrong ... and she had missed the part where he had admitted that he was falling in love with her...