Going Crazy

It was all over the school. Draco Malfoy´s latest insane escapade. Harry head heard about it walking down to breakfast from some Gryffindor third-years, and had decided to go straight down as soon as he´d eaten.

It was a warm Saturday morning and Harry ambled slowly towards the lake, not being bothered to go any faster. Crowds were thick around the shore, staring out at the water expectantly. Harry rolled his eyes at the site. Honestly, nothing Malfoy did could be this interesting.

"Hey, Harry!"

Harry looked round to see Ron beckoning him over his spot right at the front of the crowd. He pushed himself through the mass of people and arrived at the lakeside. "Hi."

Ron looked like he´s just won the lottery. His smile almost reached his ears and his face was beginning to tinge pink from the prolonged exposure to the morning sun.

"What´s going on?" Harry asked.

Ron gawped at him. "You mean you haven´t heard?! Malfoy´s gone crazy again!"

Harry raised his eyebrows at his friend, who was positively giddy. "Well that´s nothing new now, is it?"

Ron shrugged, casting his eyes back to the water. "Maybe not, but it´s still fun to watch."

Harry followed Ron´s gaze, using his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. Draco Malfoy was stood in a rowing boat in the middle of the lake, singing loudly and throwing something in to the water.

"It´s not fun at all! It´s evil."

Harry looked down to see Hermione sitting cross-legged on the grass by their feet, a heavy volume in her lap.

"Evil!" exclaimed Seamus from the other side. He had taken his shirt off and was lying on it, propped up by his elbows and gaining appreciative glances from Lavender Brown´s direction. "Evil indeed! It´s bloody fantastic, this is!"

Hermione risked a glance up from her book to cast a worried look in Malfoy´s direction. "What if he falls in? He could get eaten by the Giant Squid!"

Ron rolled his eyes. "Hermione!You´re meant to be happy about all of this! Malfoy´s finally lost it!"

Hermione tutted."I´m not happy that Malfoy has lost it at all! I may not like him, but that doesn´t mean I want him to go crazy or eaten by a squid!"

Harry frowned. "What is he singing?"

"`98 Green Muggles Sat on a Wall´," Dean informed him. "He was singing `I´ve got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts´ earlier. You should´ve been here, Harry, it was pure comedy."

Harry nodded slightly, telling Dean that he was sure it was hilarious, although he was secretly relived that he didn´t have to witness Malfoy singing about his coconuts - no matter how lovely he said they were.

"Been here since six a.m., Harry. Me and Seamus were the first ones down," Ron told him proudly.

"There was no way we were gonna miss this!" nodded Seamus.

Harry looked back out at the lake, watching Malfoy sing and throw quills in to the water. The boat was wobbling wildly and Harry was certain that Malfoy would be thrown overboard any moment now. He frowned again, wondering what had gotten in to Malfoy lately, and then promptly cursed himself for even caring.

It had all started on Monday. The day had passed relatively normally until dinner in The Great Hall, when the schools meal was interrupted by Draco Malfoy suddenly climbing on top of the Slytherin table and proceeding to juggle five sausages before throwing them in to the faces of the surrounding Slytherins. Harry had found the site of Pansy Parkinson, Crabbe, Goyle, Blaise Zabini and Millicent Bulstrode covered in squashed sausage very amusing, but not quite as funny as Ron found it, who was still laughing hysterically almost six hours later and had to be led away for sedation.

Later on, Harry had wondered what had been up with Malfoy. That wasn´t like him at all. He shook it off and didn´t think anymore about it until the next day, when Malfoy did something even stranger.

It was during Care of Magical Creatures. Malfoy stopped half-way through complaining that Hagrid was a big oaf who shouldn´t be allowed to go anywhere near children and lit a flame on the end of his wand. He then proceeded to set alight the tail of every Jumping Jakko the class had just finished feeding. Afterwards, he just stood there in the middle of the pen with that smug look on his face while Hagrid ran around after the squealing Jakko´s and Hermione and Lavender complained about cruelty to animals. Ron and Seamus had stood there laughing at the screaming girls while Harry pondered on what the hell was up with Draco Malfoy.

Whatever it was, it surely hadn´t gone by Thursday. That day saw Malfoy dance around on the top of the teachers table, pouring pumpkin juice on everyone that was sat there and then forcing a house-elf to jump about singing and dancing like Michael Jackson. The pelvic thrusts were too much for some girls though, who fainted all over their lunch while the paintings ran off to tell their friends.

Thursday though, Harry pondered, had seemed relatively tame compared to the previous day. Wednesday passed with Snape being haunted by Malfoy wherever he went and having jokes played on him all day. Ron had found it terribly amusing to see Snape with pink, frilly knickers on his head and would´ve had to have taken a trip up to Madam Pomfrey again hadn´t Hermione hit him with a sobering spell.

Then there was yesterday. Still bent on tormenting Snape, Malfoy had spiked his drink with three-quarters of a bottle of Firewhiskey. After Snape had run around the Great Hall smoking from the mouth, he´d grabbed a jug of water and poured it over his head to put himself out. As Snape sat calmly down, ignoring the gawps of the rest of Hogwarts, he picked up a new drink and knocked it all back. There was a lot of screaming then, as Snape turned into Dumbledore from the Polyjuice-spiked drink. It was quite strange to see Dumbledore sat next to himself, but even scarier for Snape, who jumped up cursing with words that Harry had never even heard Ron use, before chasing Malfoy wildly out of the Hall.

Harry looked around the lake, trying to locate Snape. He found the Potions teacher stood the other side of the water, glaring out at Malfoy with his arms crossed. Malfoy hadn´t noticed he was gaining Avada Kedavra glares off his once favourite teacher, and was carrying on with his quill dunking, singing that 78 green Muggles were now sitting on the wall.

"WHAT is going on here?!" A shrill was made from the back of the crowd as Professor McGonagall pushed her way through the students. She gasped in horror at the site of Malfoy. "MISTER MALFOY! What in the name of Merlin are you doing?! SEAMUS FINNIGAN! Cover yourself up this instant!"

Malfoy obviously didn´t hear McGonagall´s demands, but there was a lot of grumbling from Seamus as he reluctantly pulled on his shirt.

McGonagall pointed to her throat and said, "Sonorus," at which her voice echoed around the lake. "Students! Please calm down! Now, I want you all to take five steps back from the lake," Everyone blinked at McGonagall, not moving, but her stern expression made them think otherwise as she screamed, "NOW!" Satisfied that everyone had moved back, she directed herself at Malfoy, who had stopped singing and dunking quills to sit down and stare at her, and carried on. "Mister Malfoy, come back to the shore this instant!"

Malfoy shook his head and cried, "No!"

"Come here, Mister Malfoy!"

"No!"

"If you don´t come back to the shore right now, you will have expulsion to add to your list of detentions for your ridiculous tricks!" McGonagall cried, growing red in the face. Hermione gasped. The other Gryffindors around McGonagall took a step back, scared she might combust any second.

"I don´t care! Expel me!"

"Why are you doing this, Mister Malfoy?!"

Malfoy struggled to stand up as the little rowing boat rocked and swayed. "I . . . am . . . in . . . love!"

The crowd gasped. McGonagall glared. "I don´t care, Malfoy, get back here at once!"

Malfoy managed to stand, but swayed slightly with the boat. Throwing his arms up in the air, he cried for everyone to hear, "I AM IN LOVE WITH RON WEASLEY!!!" And then proceeded to topple straight over the side of the boat and into the murky depths of the lake.

All heads swivelled to stare at Ron, who was stood gawping, open mouthed at the spot where Malfoy had just fallen in the lake.

"Well," said Harry, trying to stop himself from smiling. "At least we know why Malfoy´s gone insane."

The only reply was a loud thump, as Ron fainted to the floor.