Pigtails

PIGTAILS 3

By breakfast the next day, Draco had cast a silencing charm on himself out of which his housemates had created a game of trying to remove. A certain number of points were awarded depending on what they were able to get him to say, and whether or not he became violent about it. So far, Pansy was in the lead.

Harry had tied the bandanna into so many tight knots around his mouth that he couldn't get it off any longer, and he sat through the meal staring disconsolately down at his full plate of food before slouching away to the library to do some research.

Snape wandered in twenty minutes late, looking smug and oddly rosy-cheeked, with Lucius strolling along a few feet behind him.

"Son, what are you still doing in the Great Hall?" he asked sleepily. "You have a cure to find."

Draco stared silently up at his father, pretending that the purple blotch on his neck was a particularly large ink stain.

"He's cast a silencing charm on himself, sir," Blaise filled the adults in. "He won't speak."

Lucius shook his head. "Well, you'll never be rid of this horrible affliction if you can't order the Gryffindors around properly. Get to the library and tell them to work harder, blink less, fear your wrath, and all that. I'm getting a coffee."

Pansy muttered something and giggled. "Draco, what are you most scared of?"

"Pigeons," he said and flattened both palms over his face, glaring menacingly at the ridiculously impolite girl.

"Pigeons?"

Draco grunted. "Have you ever walked out of a building and had them swarm you? Their horrible little wings flapping all over you, batting at your hair and smudging your perfect skin with their filth and disease? It's like rubbing your face on the Hufflepuff common room. What are you writing?"

"Hmm? Oh, nothing," she muttered, folding a sheet of parchment and slipping it into her pocket.

"I don't think I can handle a room full of Gryffindors," he wished he hadn't suddenly said out loud. "This is already the worst day of my life."

"I'll come," Blaise offered, stretching up in his seat and yawing widely. "I've got nothing else going on."

"Good, it'd be embarrassing just showing up on my own; Potter might think I'm unlovable. And you do smell amazing, Zabini. Would you mind killing me now?"

In the library, Harry was sitting at a large table with Hermione and Ron. What appeared to be nearly all of Gryffindor house were packed into the smaller tables around them, whispering excitedly as Draco entered and doing a poor job of stifling their laughter.

Hermione looked up and scowled. "Get over here and fix this right now, you monster!" she called in her shrill little voice, violently waving a large book over her head. "You horrible, horrible little man!"

"Temper," he quipped under his breath as he took a seat.

"How are you doing, Potter?" Blaise asked conversationally, seating himself and opening a massive tome. He flipped absently through the pages and didn't appear to care in the slightest how Harry was feeling.

"Lonely," he replied and then sighed exasperatedly. "My life is so hard and empty, you know."

Draco snorted.

Harry continued, sounding annoyed, "I really shouldn't have let you take my gag off, Ron. Now I'm just going to babble about how sweet Malfoy looks when he's sleepy and how nice Zabini smells and how annoying Herm's voice is and how bad maroon really looks on you, and I think I should just go get a glass of water and drown myself in it now."

"Sit down, Harry," Hermione said, her voice all of a sudden remarkably low and soft.

"You'd need a bowl of water to properly drown yourself," Ron pointed out helpfully.

"Well, I could always shag him - drown him - in the Prefect's bathtub. Yes," Draco offered, flushing madly and ignoring the fact that Snape and his father had just walked into the library, hand-in-hand and laughing like teenagers.

"Cured yourself yet?" Lucius asked when they had reached the table.

"Not yet, father."

"Why not? You've been at it for five minutes already."

"Give them time," Snape whispered into the other man's throat from behind and then moved with an undulating sort of strut over to a poorly lit corner.

"You will never understand the level that my distress has reached over the pair of you," Draco announced and then braced himself.

Lucius just smiled as if this amused him a great deal and then left to join the Potions Master at his shadowy table.

"What was the ingredient that you forgot, again?" Hermione asked, her nose now in the book, great clouds of dust flying up as she breathed on it. The particles landed in a thick, grey veil over her fuzzy hair and she appeared to be used to this sort of thing.

"Shrivelfig," both boys replied in chorus.

"Well, it says here that shrivelfig acts as a kind of sponge to dilute the potion, and-"

"Yes, yes, we know that, you useless cow," Draco snapped. "What happens when it isn't added? Does the potion ever wear off?"

Hermione paused for a moment, her eyes flashing wildly as she scanned the page. "No."

"WHAT?"

"Well, not on it's own. And I'm ignoring the cow comment, by the way, you whiney little priss. It says here that Wendolin the Weird, famous for enjoying being burned at the stake, claimed that she was able to reverse the effects of Veritaserum by eating seven leaves of Scurvy-grass, and Bridget Wenlock, famous for the discovery of the magical properties of the number seven, made the same claim in 1263, although she was never personally under the influence of this serum."

Ron slowly looked up from the textbook he was doodling in. "Scurvy-grass?"

"Yes, it's... Well, it's long and black and is one of the key ingredients in Confusing and Befuddlement Draughts. But it says here that it can be found in the Forbidden Forest and it doesn't have the same effect on those under the influence of Veritaserum."

"So," Draco began. "You're going to send us into a Terrifying Forest of Death in search of a plant that will make us confused, and then expect us to find our way back out alive, and then have me not kill you in a befuddled yet wrathful state of frenzy. Have we just met?"

"Well, obviously you won't eat the leaves until you get back to the school. And even then, it isn't supposed to make you confused, it's supposed to cloud your mind enough that the Veritaserum is rendered ineffective. Once the grass wears off, you're fine again."

"How long does the Scurvy-grass take to wear off?" Harry enquired.

Hermione cringed. "Between one hour and six days."

"No," Draco said decisively.

"Malfoy, we have no other choice," Harry told him. "There's no other way."

"Fine," he conceded. "But I'm only doing this because you're gorgeous when you're being earnest, and I really need to stop saying these things out loud as soon as possible. Can we leave now?"

"Yes, let's," Hermione agreed cheerfully, closing the book and regarding them with an excited twinkle in her eyes.

"Oh no," Harry said, standing and pointing a staying finger at her shocked face. "You're not coming with us. Either Ron will see something shiny and wander off in its general direction, or you'll see something that has been vaguely discriminated against in some benign way, and I'll end up having to save your lives. Honestly, I really can't be arsed to do it today, alright? I can't believe how rude I'm being..." He smiled for a fraction of a second and then said, "Meet us in Dumbledore's office when we get back."

With that, he grabbed hold of Draco's sleeve and pulled him from the library, down the stairs and out onto the school grounds.

It took them several minutes to make their way to the edge of the woods, during which time both boys kept their mouths clamped shut and their gazes averted. Of course, once they stopped, Draco noted that the trees were dark, the path was thin, there were strange noises coming from inside, and, frankly, he had his reservations.

"I've changed my mind," he said carefully.

Harry started as if he had been lost in the same sort of thoughts. "Excuse me?"

"I'm not going in there. That tree right there on the left is about the most terrifying thing I can handle right now. I'll just sit down on the hill back there and wait for you to return, ok?"

"Shut up, Malfoy, you're coming with me if I have to knock you down and strip you. Drag you, I meant. If I have to strip you along with me. Drag you stripped. Drag you along with me. Just get going."

He shoved Draco out in front of him and continued to usher him harshly through the wall of trees and into what had to be the most absurdly terrifying nature reserve on the face of the planet.

"Whose decision was it to build a school for children on the outskirts of a forest full of deadly, man-eating type things?" Draco whispered.

"Stop being such a baby," Harry said in tones of utmost frustration. "I've been in here loads of times."

"Yes, well, it is quite filthy. I can see how you'd feel at home."

Harry stopped and regarded Draco with an odd gleam in his eyes. He crossed his arms, tilted his head back and said, "I thought I was rugged and manly," before grinning widely and pulling clumps of grass out of the ground.

"Clever," Draco muttered and kicked a bit of dirt at the other boy.

Harry laughed, still bent over, shoving long blades of grass into each of his pockets.

"Well, now that you've gone completely around the twist, I'll just be off," Draco told him, backing away slowly.

"That's fine, I think I found the Scurvy-grass anyway."

Harry walked past him and back down the path to the school grounds, the black blades hanging loosely and temptingly out of his pocket.

"See?" Harry asked as Draco jogged to catch up. "That was completely uneventful."

"Yesh, welp, I could've toldoo it wouldda ben."

"What?" Harry said, pivoting quickly and cracking a small twig beneath his foot.

Draco screamed.

He fell to the ground and wrapped his arms over his head, drawing his knees up and looking for all the world as if he had just been shot at.

"What are you doing? Did you eat the grass? Malfoy, we don't even know if it was the right kind!" He slowly moved over to the ball of Malfoy quaking on the ground. "Are you crying?"

"A LITTLE BIT!" Draco bellowed, and then scampered away on all fours.

He rushed toward the castle, pushing himself awkwardly to his feet. He craned his neck frantically in every direction as he went, slipping a bit on the muddy ground, shrieking as if the earth was being torn out from beneath him when he did so, and flailing his arms at both sides as if fending away a swarm of killer bees.

Harry broke into a sprint to catch up, panting as he made his way up the hill.

"Malfoy!" he shouted, and Draco screamed in terror again, somehow gaining speed and then running directly into Dumbledore's chest.

The Headmaster smiled calmly. "Ah," he said, steadying the frantic boy with one weathered hand wrapped around his grinding jaw.

"AH?" Draco bellowed. "What do you mean ah, you cryptic old fool? Get out of the way! Move-move-move!"

Harry finally reached them, huffing and bending over to rest his hands on his own knees as he gained his breath. "He... ate... wasn't?"

Dumbledore shook his head, wrapping his other hand around the base of Draco's neck. "I see that Miss Granger didn't inform the pair of you that Scurvy-grass resembles Alihotsy?"

"What are you talking about? Why are you trying to choke me? Unhand me! I will not stand for this! I need to go! I need to get going!"

Harry sighed dejectedly. "No. I take it that Alihotsy induces some kind of insanity?"

"Hysteria," the old man corrected, smiling with a great deal of amusement. "Let's get you to Poppy, what do you say Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco burst into tears.