Why We Fight

Red Raven

Story Summary:
A mess-up in Potions sends Draco and Hermione to the past where they meet a couple much like them. Hermione & Draco, James & Lily.

Chapter 30 - Here We Go A-Maraudering

Chapter Summary:
Draco becomes a Marauder, and who exactly is Professor Flaherty?
Posted:
03/19/2007
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2,138

Part 30:
Here We Go A-Maraudering
(Sunday, October 16, 1977)

Hermione looked around Professor Flaherty's office with curiosity. It wasn't quite what she was expecting, not that she really had any idea of what to expect. It didn't seem to...fit him. It was too...much. Professor Flaherty seemed to be a man of less-flashy tastes and seemed completely out of his element. He looked around the office, his nose wrinkling with distaste.

"I've only taken this job on a...temporary basis while Professor Slughorn is out and about rubbing elbows with famous people he claims he brought to greatness," the man said with great contempt. Hermione was put-off by his frankness and wasn't sure what to say. She didn't have to say anything, the professor continued. "I hear that you and Mister -- Malfoy, is it? -- have had a little potions mess-up."

"A little potions mess-up?" she cried. "We went into the past! Nineteen years in the past!"

Flaherty gave a bit of a shrug as he examined a rack of Potions ingredients. "Well, you could have ended up like others who have misused thistledown, thyme, and wolfbane. At least, you know where you are. Many people don't have that luxury. Although, I do find it rather strange that you came back to this era. Oftentimes, a Potion seems to choose certain years that have some connection to the people who blunder them."

"I'll have you know! I had nothing at all to do with the potion getting messed up! It was all Draco's fault, he wasn't paying attention..."

Flaherty looked at the dark-haired girl over his spectacles. "Then you should have paid attention for him, Miss Granger. That's the point of working with partners, to make sure that you both do your assignment properly." She tried to come up with a comment but couldn't. "Time is in constant fluctuation, believe it or not. Time mishaps happen all the time but no one really knows about them because they occur centuries beforehand and no one is alive to remember the original history. Which is why I say yours and Mr. Malfoy's situation is extremely unusual."

"Er...well, that's helpful," Hermione said.

"It most likely happened because something is meant to change and until that is met, then you will be unable to return to your own time."

"James and Lily," the former-prefect whispered.

"You must think before you act, Miss Granger. Time is a funny thing. There is destiny and there is fate. Destiny is something that you're meant to do, while fate is something you must do. Fate cannot be changed, no matter what anyone does; it will happen. You may come up with a million ways to change something, but if it is fated, then it will always end the same. Destiny, on the other hand, is constantly changing. Before you act on what you think you must do, think of the possible changes. Think of what would have happened if it hadn't happened. Things would be entirely different if they hadn't sacrificed their lives for Harry."

Hermione's eyes widened. "How'd you know about Harry?" she demanded.

A strange smile crossed the professor's lips. "Let's just say, you and Mr. Malfoy aren't the only ones out of your element here, Miss Granger. It's late, you should probably return to the Head House before curfew." The brunette left the professor's office with more questions than answers.


A couple of hours later, the Marauders gathered in James's room. The Head Boy was still grinning like a complete idiot from another successful date with Lily. Sirius was confused about the cold shoulder he'd gotten from Hermione when he'd tried to talk to her as she left the Head common room. "Well, due to Moony's decision to allow Draco here to join us without a fourth task--" James started.

"No, there is a fourth task in progress. The impossible one of getting our boy Prongs to hook up with the lovely Lily Evans," Sirius stated.

James pouted slightly. "Not impossible. Improbable." His hazel gaze turned to Draco. "It's time you learned our biggest secret. Wormtail, you're on."

"Do you solemnly swear, from this point on, to constantly be up to no good, Mr. Aquilus?" Peter asked. Draco frowned slightly as Peter's phrasing clicked. The parchment they'd given him had pretty much told him that much. His curiosity piqued and he wondered what Hermione had done with it.

"Mr. Wormtail, I solemnly swear to be constantly up to no good from this point on," Draco said.

"Mr. Aquilus, do you solemnly swear to apply the lessons to be learned here tonight to your daily life from this point on?" James asked.

"Mr. Prongs, I solemnly swear to apply the lessons learned here tonight to my daily life from this point on."

"Mr. Aquilus, do you solemnly swear that you will maintain the beliefs and lessons of the Marauders from this point on?" Sirius asked.

"Mr. Padfoot, I solemnly swear that I will maintain the beliefs and lessons of the Marauders from this point on."

"Mr. Aquilus, do you solemnly swear not to divulge any of the secrets you will learn here tonight from this point on?" Remus asked.

"Mr. Moony, I solemnly swear not to divulge any of the secrets I will learn here tonight from this point on."

"Well, that was rather fun," James said. He looked at the four other Marauders with a smirk. "Well, who's first?"

"Me. Me. Me," Peter chirped. James, Remus, and Sirius nodded and Peter began to transform. His tubby body compacted into a tinier, tubby body with gray fur, a long rat's nose, whiskers, and a long, bare tail. Peter Pettigrew had just turned into a rat. Draco watched with interest, wincing a bit as he remembered how painful Barty Crouch's forced Transfiguration on him had been. It hadn't seemed to hurt Peter at all and Draco wondered if it would hurt if he Transfigured himself.

"That's bloody amazing," Draco said and Wormtail squeaked with pleasure. It had taken him forever to finally figure out how to change and he was very proud that he had finally managed it.

James grinned and began to transform himself. Where James had stood, a beautiful stag now stood and Draco's eyes widened. "Prongs," he said. He had known what Sirius and Peter could transform into, but he'd never known about James's. Prongs bowed his head and Draco's eyes met the stag's soulful, hazel eyes.

There was a bark and Draco turned to see a large, black dog stood where Sirius had been. "A grim," he said with amusement. He looked to Moony. "What about you? What do you turn into?"

Moony's eyes widened. "Er...well...I can't really control when I change like Prongs, Padfoot, and Wormtail. I'm a werewolf." Draco nodded thoughtfully.

"So, does it hurt to, you know, change?" Draco asked.

"Well, it hurts me but not them," Moony said, nodding toward his Animagi friends.

Prongs had changed back. "We don't expect you to be able to transform any time soon, so don't feel bad about it," he said.

"Can I at least try?" Draco asked.

Padfoot had also changed back. "By all means, be our guest," he said with a bit of a smirk.

"Just think animal. Remember how you felt when you were a ferret," James suggested.

"You were a ferret?" Peter asked.

"Long story. One I'd rather not talk about. Ever," Draco said. Okay, I can do this. Think animal. Concentrate on fierce and vicious. Maybe a dog? He looked at Sirius and Remus and decided against it. I'm not rat material. So no rats for me. I really can't see myself as a stag either. Hmmm...what can I be? He decided not to think about it and just let his body decide for him. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the feel of what it had been like to be a ferret, how his body had changed to accommodate the forced Transfiguration. He started to feel smaller and, in no time, he peered up at the four other Marauders.

"Not fair," Peter whined. "It took me forever to get it right...and he gets it right the first day, the first time?"

"Well, he does have experience," James said with a bit of pride.

Sirius chuckled as he examined Draco's new form. "Well, that's certainly vicious."

Draco looked down and saw a fluffy white paw. Oh, bloody hell! I'm not a ferret again am I? he thought. He looked to his friends and tried to ask. A mew came out. Do ferrets mew? He pawed at the bathroom door and Peter opened it for him. Draco scrambled up to the sink and peered at his reflection in the mirror. Well, he wasn't a ferret. Draco stared at the mirror for the longest time. He pawed at the reflection. The reflection pawed back. Draco Malfoy had turned into a cat: a large, white, fluffy cat with silver eyes. Needless to say, he was disappointed. Couldn't he have been something like a hawk or an eagle or anything that wasn't remotely white and fluffy?

James, Peter, Remus, and Sirius joined him in the bathroom, and he saw their reflections in the mirror. "Well, I think I've got a good nickname for you now, mate," James said. "Whiskers." Draco cocked his head and thought it over. Whiskers wasn't exactly scary or anything, but he rather liked it. It was definitely better than "ferret." Sirius smirked at Draco's apparent acceptance of his new nickname.

"Ickle Whiskers," he taunted and Draco lashed out, clawing the Beater's hand causing blood to well from the scratches. "Bloody hell!" Sirius gingerly licked the blood away. "Okay, vicious enough." Draco gave the best, self-satisfied grin a cat could give.

"Out of the bathroom," Hermione called. "I'm coming in."

"Where's that Invisibility Cloak?" Sirius asked.

"Sorry, mate, but no peep show for you," James said as he led his friends out of the bathroom. Hermione locked both doors, not noticing the white cat in the sink. James looked around the Head Boy's Room. "Oi. Where's Whiskers?"


Hermione sighed with relief once the boys were out of the room and began to turn faucets in the Head Bathroom, the scent of roses filling the air and the pristine water of the pool-sized tub quickly foaming over with pink and white bubbles. The brunette untied the stays of her robe and Draco couldn't tear his eyes away. He actually tried. It wasn't because he was a gentleman. Far from it, he was a Malfoy and Malfoys were definitely not gentlemen. But it wasn't the Malfoys' decidedly un-gentlemanlike behavior that kept the cat's silver eyes glued to the form before him. It was the curiosity. What did Hermione look like under all those clothes? Draco found out in a few seconds.

The robe dropped off her shoulders and the cat got an eyeful of the girl's back. She had curves in all the right places and he suddenly developed an admiration for freckles due to the spots dappled all over her skin. Cat eyes trailed over the sensuous play of muscles dancing down her back as she let the robe drop, down to the round but supple rear end covered by royal blue silk panties, and down the shapely legs that looked a lot longer than usual. Draco had never really imagined Granger as the silk and satin type, more of the white cotton type. Er...not that I've ever imagined her in any sort of nearly-undressed state, of course... he added mentally.

Hermione stretched out and looked over to the vanity where she had laid her clothes to double-check. She stretched out and Draco watched the way her matching bra moved with her. She reached behind her to undo her bra and tossed it atop the pile of clothes; the panties soon joined them and Draco was gifted with an uninterrupted view of her lovely derriere. He silently begged her to turn around. No! Don't turn around! Stay put! he thought.

He usually wasn't the type to spy on naked girls (he left that to Crabbe and Goyle) but once the scraps of silk had been removed, his eyes were glued and there was no way that he could ever tear them away from the shapely form in front of him. Hermione slid into the water and, in this, she revealed her profile. The cat swallowed hard as he caught sight of her breasts, also smattered with freckles. Her stomach wasn't flat and, according to magazines featuring stick figures for models, she was fat. Draco definitely didn't believe that. She was the most beautiful female he'd seen naked this close before. Er...no, no, no, she wasn't. She's Granger, Mudblood, Know-it-All with a lovely...no, no, bad thoughts don't go there, he thought.

Her bath took an hour and the cat didn't remove his eyes from her once. He truly felt like a pervert after all this, but he couldn't stop looking. When it was finally over, Hermione yawned and got dressed in white cotton underclothes and pajamas decorated with moving stars and moons. Once she was clothed, she grabbed her toothpaste and toothbrush and walked over to the sink where the cat had been hiding all this time. The cat ducked lower in the sink's bowl but let out a yowl as the girl let the water flow over him.

Hermione stared at the white, wet cat that occupied her sink with confusion and gingerly lifted him free. "Where'd you come from, little one?" she asked, examining him. He mewed as she pulled him close and began to stroke his soggy fur. He tried, he really did, but he couldn't prevent the purr from starting. "Yes, you're such a pretty kitty, aren't you?" He hissed at the remark. "Okay, not so pretty, then. Do you have a name?" The cat batted his whiskers with a pink-padded paw. "Whiskers? Is that your name?" The cat nodded and Hermione was impressed. "You're a very smart kitty, aren't you?"

The cat gave the best grin he could manage in his feline form. She grabbed her robe and discarded clothes and headed into the Head Girl's Room. Lily was sitting on her bed reading but looked up at Hermione's entrance. She cocked her head and eyed the cat. "Where'd that come from?"

"I'm not sure. The cat was in the bathroom," the brunette replied, stroking Draco between his ears and eliciting another purr.

"The cat watched you take a bath?" Lily asked.

"It's just a cat," Hermione stated, depositing said creature on her bed. "And look at him, he's so cute." The cat hissed.

"It's cute all right," the redhead said at the cat's response.

"He doesn't like to be patronized." She retrieved her journal and a quill once more and stared at the blank pages for what seemed like hours but still couldn't come up with something to tell her friends. He read the following page curiously and found himself disappointed when it was just a little letter back home. Where were Hermione Granger's darkest secrets?

It took forever for the two girls to finally fall asleep and, once they were sleeping soundly, Draco looked around curiously as he remembered the parchment Hermione had taken from him. He peered down into the drawer of her bedside table which was open a crack and maneuvered his paw into the crack. He pulled the drawer open fully and examined the drawer's contents. He batted aside the journal Hermione had written in and found the parchment. He slid into the drawer and took the parchment into his mouth, wincing at its taste. It took him a few moments to figure out how to get out of the drawer with the parchment in his mouth.

He crept across the room, dropped the parchment, and bounded atop the table by the door. He jumped onto the doorknob and managed to twist it a bit before his pads lost traction and he fell onto his back. I thought cats were bloody well supposed to land on their feet, he thought, annoyed. He tried again and fell once more. Things are a lot easier with opposable thumbs. The third time was a charm and the door opened slightly. He squirmed out of the Head Girl's Room before ducking in once more to retrieve the parchment.

Once in the relative safety of the Head Common Room, Draco tried to transform back. He tried to picture himself as a human again but with no luck. He then realized that he had never really learned to turn back. The cat padded across the room, stood on his back legs, and clawed at the Head Boy's door. He mewled and yowled, scratching the door. The door finally opened and a groggy-looking James answered the door. He looked down at the cat with the parchment in his mouth. "Took you bloody long enough." Draco glared at James as best his feline eyes could. "Couldn't figure out how to change back, eh? Come on, then." He gestured for the cat to follow him into the room. The cat entered the Head Boy's Room and the door closed behind him.

On the other side of the Head Common Room, a brunette with hair mussed from sleep stood in the Head Girl's Room, peering out the door. Hermione paled as she realized where the cat had come from. It was Draco--bloody--Malfoy. He'd turned himself into a cat and had gotten into the Head Bathroom. How much had he seen? Had he watched her? Oh...she really was going to kill him...or, at least, hurt him a lot.


Once Draco was safely ensconced in the Head Boy's Room, James, Sirius, and Remus had taught him to change back into a human. It had took him a lot longer to master becoming human again than it had for him to initially master the feat of becoming Whiskers. By three in the morning, he had finally figured out how to turn back into his human self. At this, he was confronted by Sirius.

"You spied on my girlfriend," the larger, dark-haired boy growled.

"Not intentionally!" the blonde said, backing away from him.

"Did you see anything?" Peter asked. Draco's blush gave it away and he quickly tried to drain the offending blood from his face. "You did...what was it like?"

Remus simply watched Sirius's testosterone-fest with scientific interest as the Beater turned on their round friend with murder in his eyes. "Er...Wormtail...you really shouldn't ask those questions..." James interjected.

Remus decided to leave the scientific approach for later. "Look, Padfoot, it was an accident. And, in all fairness, Hermione was Draco's girlfriend before the two of you started dating. It's not like he saw anything he hadn't seen before."

Yeah right, Draco thought. I've seen plenty of girls naked. But never Hermione Granger, never Harry Potter's best mate, never a Muggle-born know-it-all...never anyone who had looked quite as good... his thoughts trailed off. Aw, fuck! Why am I thinking about that Mudblood like that? Maybe I really should go talk to Flaherty about fixing this bloody mess. His silver eyes bounced over his fellow Marauders and felt a pang of despair at the possible thought of leaving the only friends he'd really known. No, I'll take my chances on dirty thoughts on Granger. I mean, it's not like they really mean anything...

James took the parchment that Whiskers had deposited onto the floor of the Head Boy's Room. He tapped his wand on the parchment. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good," he said. Draco looked at the parchment James held and was amazed to see a map of Hogwarts. "Get me a quill, Wormtail." Peter retrieved a quill and handed it to James. "Time to make your mark." He quickly jabbed the quill into the pad of Draco's forefinger, drawing a surprised yelp from the blonde. "You're sealing it in blood. Like...blood-brothers."

Draco took the quill and wrote "Whiskers" on the map. The map went blank before resetting itself. Now it read:

Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, Prongs, and Whiskers
Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers
are proud to present

THE MARAUDER'S MAP

A smile quirked Draco's lips as he examined the intricate map that now bore his new Marauder name and felt a swell of pride. He finally belonged somewhere...

Tuesday, October 15, 1996

Ron sighed as he stared at the Marauder's Map for any sign whatsoever of Hermione. He and Harry had been sharing the responsibility since she'd disappeared. He had a feeling that the professors knew more than they were letting on, but he couldn't prove it. The map went blank before resetting. With confusion, Ron reread the map to find a strange, new name on the familiar parchment. "Er...Harry...who's Whiskers?"