Disclaimer: If I did own Harry Potter, I'd be spending my time writing the sixth book...not this. But since I am, we can conclude I don't own Harry Potter.
Parenting Class
Pansy, the Horror-Oops! I meant Angel!
"I take it St. Mungo's could help?" Dumbledore inquired as three sooty people came tumbling out of his fireplace and landing on the large, woven rug.
"Yes, Sir, they could," Hermione said happily, standing up and brushing ash off of her robes and then dusting Draco. "We'd best be heading to our rooms to get cleaned up. Thank you for letting us go."
"Not a problem at all," Dumbledore answered with a smile, the familiar twinkle in his eye as he gazed down at the chibi Draco. "Would you like a lemon drop, Draco?" he asked kindly.
Draco opened his mouth to say yes but Hermione beat him to the chase. "Draco says no thank you, Professor Dumbledore. He's had quite a few sweets while we were away, didn't you Draco?" The child stuck his lower lip out in a pout.
"Well then, I wouldn't want to ruin your appetite for dinner," Dumbledore cheerfully said. "Run along all of you...and Miss Granger and Mr. Potter? I had your assignments brought to your rooms that you missed."
"Thank you, Sir," Hermione said gratefully, resisting the urge to run over and hug the aging professor. "Come on Harry, Draco," she ordered, starting for the staircase. Draco followed, eyes sorrowfully watching the candy jar while Harry gave Fawkes a good-bye pat.
"Ah ha! There you three are! What happened to you all?" queried Leviculus, the impish grin fixed on his face, the jester's cap tinkling merrily as he bounced up and down.
"Just a slight accident," Hermione said lightly, preferring to not go into detail. "We've been at St. Mungo's all day so that's why we haven't been here."
"Oh dear me!" gasped the jester, clutching his heart. "Is everything all right?" His eyes scanned all three of them for any sign of injury, but for all his observing, he could only find soot on the three figures.
"We're all fine, Leviculus. Not a thing to worry about," Hermione assured. "But we are awfully tired and quite dirty...mind letting us in?"
"Password, my dear?" the jester asked charmingly.
"Parvulus."
With a graceful bow, Leviculus swung open to show the oddly decorated room. With a sigh, Hermione trooped in before collapsing on the couch, rubbing her neck absentmindedly.
"What's wrong, Hermione?" Draco asked, hopping onto the couch next to Hermione, silver eyes piercing her brown ones. "Does your neck hurt?"
"Just a little sore, Draco." The boy fixed her with his gaze before running over to Hermione's room and opening the door. Both she and Harry remained still, wondering what the boy was going to do.
He exited carrying a dark brown jar carefully in his hands. "It's murtlap essence," the child said proudly, scrambling up next to Hermione. "I found it in your trunk yesterday."
"What were you doing in my trunk?" she asked, accepting the jar with a smile.
The boy looked down at his feet. "I was just curious," he murmured.
"It's all right, I'm not mad," she said, pulling the boy into a hug. "Just don't do it again, okay?" Draco nodded. "Good. Now why don't we all get freshened up and then we'll head down to dinner? You must be starving, Draco!"
"I am a little hungry," he admitted with a sheepish grin.
All three left for their rooms and emerged several minutes later, clad in stark black robes and soot free from their faces. "All ready to go?" Hermione cheerfully questioned, scooping Draco into her arms.
She wasn't quite sure why, but she enjoyed carrying the child even though he was old enough to walk. Just something about the way he threw his arms around her neck in a hug or the small source of warmth he gave off melted her heart and made her want to just hug him.
The trio walked silently down the hall, all quite exhausted from the day's events, save Draco, still running on solid sugar. He only remained quite since he sensed his guardians were quite tired.
Entering the Great Hall, Hermione all but fell onto the bench, her head resting on Draco's for a pillow. The child squirmed uncomfortably, his stomach being pressed into the wooden tabletop.
Ginny, seeing his predicament, gently plucked him off of Hermione's lap and set him on the bench beside her. "Hungry?" Without waiting for an answer, the redhead put a large scoop of spaghetti on the child's plate followed by several carrot sticks and a piece of garlic bread. "Eat up."
Draco needed no second urging. Within minutes (even with Draco's delicate way of eating, manners and all) the plate was sparkling gold once more. Surprised, Ginny placed a cookie and a plum for dessert back on the dish.
"Thank you...um, what was your name?" Draco mumbled, a small blush tingeing his cheeks.
"Ginny," the girl filled in. "Do you want anything else to eat?"
"No thank you, Ginny," Draco answered politely, "I'm full." Next to him, Hermione was dozing, her face resting in a bowl of jell-o, completely oblivious to the gooey substance clinging to her hair.
Harry was much the same as Hermione; though his face was simply lying on the tablecloth, hand still holding the soupspoon. "Why are they so tired?"
"Hermione and Harry had a long day," Ginny laughed. The entire school had now heard about the accident in Potions class involving the little Malfoy. And because of it, most of the Gryffindors, who had always considered themselves sworn enemies to Draco Malfoy, had actually taken a liking to the child. After all, he had gotten Hermione and Harry out of Snape's punishments.
"What were they doing?"
"Freaking out about you I'm assuming. Don't worry," she comforted, seeing the boy's eyes widen, "it was for a good cause. They really do care about you, Draco, don't forget that."
"Even Harry?"
"Even Harry," Ginny said firmly. "They'll both do anything to make sure you're happy while you stay here. No one will ever do anything to hurt you, understand?" She too had seen the way Draco had looked at Harry at times and had slowly pieced it together of what she thought was a pretty accurate solution. She'd have to check with Hermione later of course to confirm, but for now she'd just stick to her idea.
"Do you like Harry?" Ginny stared open-mouthed at Draco, the randomness and the intensity of the question quite sudden.
"He's one of my best friends!"
"Uh huh," the child said, smirk on his face.
"He's only a friend!" she cried, cheeks turning red. Draco offered her a smile and then took a sip of his milk, now pointedly ignoring the situation.
"Bees only say end?" Hermione repeated, picking her head out of the jell-o. "What did you say Ginny?"
"Nothing," the Weasley girl said testily, arms folded across her chest. "I'm going to go work on my Potions essay. Talk to you later, Mione. Oh, and you have jell-o on your face!" Grabbing her book bag from beneath the bench, Ginny exited the hall, cheeks still light pink.
Furiously, Hermione rubbed at her cheek to remove the sticky goop, Draco watching two boys rise from the Slytherin table with a small girl, interest in his eyes. "Hermione! Pansy's coming!" he shouted excitedly.
Harry sat up with a jerk, emerald eyes wide in terror. "In that case, I'm gone," he announced, starting to stand up before Hermione yanked him back down next to her.
"Oh no you don't," she hissed. "We're both going to watch her, you agreed."
Harry was about to say that she had actually basically forced him to say yes, but at that second, Blaise, Neville, and Pansy arrived, all three of them smiles.
"Here you go, Mione," Neville said quickly giving Pansy a slight push in the direction of the Gryffindor. "Now remember Pansy, be a good girl, okay?"
"Okay!" she chirped, climbing up next to Draco. "Bye Neville! Bye Blaise!" Slightly unnerved by the Slytherin's attitude, the two quickly left, a spring to their step as they realized they were free for several hours.
"Come on you two," Hermione said, pulling each one up by the back of their robes. "Time for us to go back to our room." Agreeably, Draco and Pansy followed Hermione while Neville stopped Harry so he could come and pick up some of Pansy's pajamas.
"Here we are," the Gryffindor girl announced, stopping outside the portrait of Leviculus. With a whisper, Hermione said the password and Leviculus swung open, the jester almost asleep, head resting dangerously next to a sword.
"It's so bright! I love it!" exclaimed Pansy, running over to the orange couch and hopping up and down in excitement. "My room is boring old green and blue! I love this!"
"Glad someone does," Harry muttered, entering a second later, a small pile of clothing in his arms. "I'd take the green and blue room any day."
"But colors are pretty! How could you not like this?" Pansy looked curiously at Harry, now holding one of the yellow pillows. "It's like a rainbow!"
"Some of us prefer not to be blinded everyday," Harry replied, still blinking from the polka-dotted walls.
A split second later Harry was hopping about the room in pain, clutching his shin the young girl had just kicked, a scowl adorning her face. "YOU WILL LIKE THE RAINBOW ROOM!" she bellowed.
"FINE! I LIKE IT!" Harry shouted back, glaring daggers at Pansy, who suddenly was smiling innocently, hands behind her back.
"Come on, Draco! Let's go play!" Grabbing the other Slytherin, Pansy dragged him into his room and Harry sighed in relief to see the girl gone.
Hermione crossed over to the table and picked up the stack of homework Dumbledore had brought up. "Homework time, Harry," she bubbled dividing the pile in half and taking her own.
Harry snorted when he saw one of the assignments. "Write a diary depicting all of the activities you've done during the day. Then compare them to the section of 'Daily Events' in your copy of Unfogging the Future," Harry read. "Guess what that means, Mione?"
"That you have some stupid Divination homework?"
"Uh uh. That you have stupid Divination homework too." Hermione looked sharply up. "Go and check your pile...remember, Tobin said some of our classes might be switched."
Frantically, the brunette tore through the papers, mouth dropping when she found the same scented paper Harry had. "This can't be happening," she murmured. "I can't do that class, I just can't!"
"And don't forget about our bet," Harry smirked, a gleeful expression on his face. "You have to do my homework for a week now...here you go," he said, pushing his pile towards Hermione. "Here's day one."
A loud scream interrupted what might have been an argument as Draco came tearing out of his bedroom, Pansy hot on his heels. The child's once beautiful blond hair had been changed to a shade of bright pink, and now spiky.
"MIIIIOOONNEEEEE!" he wailed diving behind the witch, Pansy running smack into Hermione. "LOOK WHAT SHE DID TO MY HAIR!"
"Pansy," Hermione giggled, attempting to sound stern and failing miserably, "what did you do to Draco?"
"I dyed his hair," she laughed. "I think it looks better now!"
"How did you do that?"
"I used a wand."
"Wand?"
In answer, Pansy held up a very familiar looking wand...Harry's wand. "I saw it in his pocket...I was only going to borrow it for a little while."
A pitiful meow sounded and Crookshanks slunk from Draco's room, his once ginger coat now lime green. "I did the cat too!" After a second's thought, she pointed the wand at Harry. "Crispus!" At once the boy's hair turned into a mass of curls, much like an afro. "Can I do your hair too, Hermione?" Pansy thought it only polite to ask the girl, seeing as she had helped her before.
"Please don't," Hermione said faintly, laughter bubbling up inside of her. A pink, spiky haired Draco and Harry with an afro? She so needed a picture...before either boy had a chance to get away; she had snapped a photo, now laughing insanely, Crookshanks also caught in the corner of the image.
"Can you fix my hair?" Draco begged, clutching onto Hermione's robes. "I don't want it pink!" With a wave of her wand, everyone's hair returned to natural, the cat giving Hermione a lick of thanks before taking off into the bathroom to escape Pansy.
"You ruined their hair!"
"I fixed it," corrected Hermione. "Now why don't you give Harry back his wand?" With a sigh, the girl reluctantly handed it to Harry. "Why don't you two go play quietly?"
The two children went back to Draco's room and Hermione sat back down on the couch, hands picking up the Divination paper once more. "Why did this have to happen me?" she moaned, crumpling it into a ball. "I won't do it! That fraud can't make me!"
"It's a grade," Harry calmly said, picking up the wad of paper off the floor from where Hermione had thrown it. "And if you don't pass the class your GPA will go down and you won't be the smartest witch anymore." Hermione's face paled.
With a muttered curse, Hermione snatched the paper from Harry's hands and began to write down notes on the side. Harry picked up a book on quidditch from one of the bookshelves and began to read, out of the corner of his eye watching Hermione do both of their homework piles.
They had been working in relative silence for the next few minutes when another scream, once more Draco's, shattered the tranquility. The door to his room flew open once more with Draco being chased by Pansy.
But instead of hair being the problem, it was the face. Red Lipstick was smeared on Draco's face, green eye shadow messily applied. Two bright pink circles covered his cheeks, the attempts at applying blush.
"No wonder Neville needed a break," Harry murmured sympathetically, Draco launching himself behind Hermione once more.
"Pansy...what did you do this time?" Hermione asked, bending down and rubbing off the make-up with a cloth she had conjured.
"I decided to give Draco a makeover...and I got the make-up from my trunk!" She displayed several tubes of lipstick and other things she'd put on when she was her older self.
"I don't think Draco liked that and I wouldn't advise you to do it again," Hermione cautioned, giving Draco a hug once all of the cosmetics had been successfully removed.
"I won't." Once more, Pansy took Draco by the arm and dragged him off to his room.
"She seems to be quite bossy," Harry acknowledged, having watched the whole scene with interest.
"Poor Draco...I do wonder how they ever became friends...he's so sweet and she's so..."
"Horrible?"
"That could be the right word...definitely not an angel."
Thankfully for the two teenagers, while only Hermione since she had to do Harry' homework as well as her own, the children stayed quiet for the next hour, sometimes soft laughter could be heard and then voices.
With a yawn, Hermione glanced up at the clock; surprised to see it was almost eight...she wanted Draco in bed by eight-thirty so she'd have to hurry through bath time.
Cracking her back, the girl abandoned the homework and opened Draco's door. Both kids were lying on Draco's bed coloring out of a picture book, neither having noticed her.
"The dragon has to be green," Pansy insisted, holding her desired crayon.
"Red," Draco protested.
"Green."
"Red."
"Green."
"Red."
Silence reigned for a single moment before both children attacked the dragon with their crayons, Hermione watching in fascination as the picture actually began to look good.
The green crayon covered the dragon's body while Draco's red got the spikes on its back and the fire coming from its mouth. "Finished," the chorused, smiling at each other.
"Looks very nice," Hermione commented.
"You think so?" Pansy asked, obviously trying to get more praise. Very Slytherin-ish.
"The red and green work very well together...after all, they are complementary colors."
"Company colors?" the girl asked, brow furrowed in puzzlement. "You mean like neighbors?"
"Sort of. Complementary colors are colors that are across from each other on the color wheel. People say, that though they are opposites they complement, or suit each other nicely."
"Oh."
"Hate to break up the coloring session, but both of you have to take your bath...it's getting late."
"Awww," both pouted. "We don't want a bath," they said together.
"Too bad. Neither of you had one yesterday so you're getting one now. Come on." When neither child budged, Hermione entered and scooped Draco into her arms, the boy sitting still, eyes drooping sleepily. It appeared the sugar high he'd been on was starting to wear off.
Pansy, on the other hand, was anything but tired. Harry rushed to Hermione's rescue and took Pansy off of the bed, attempting to stop her flailing feet. No such luck. A few minutes later, both children were in the bathtub, Harry holding an icepack to his stomach, which was rapidly bruising.
"Are we done with our bath now?" Pansy whined, letting warm water trickle between her fingers. Seeing as they were so young, Hermione and Harry had no problems dumping both children in the tub at once, effectively making it easier since Pansy did seem to calm down around Draco.
"Not even close," Hermione laughed. "Both of you turn around, I need to wash your hair." Obediently, Draco and Pansy did so, Hermione lathering her hands with shampoo.
"YOU'RE HURTING ME!" Pansy yelled when Hermione began to scrub the girl's head, kneading the scalp to make sure she got everywhere.
"Hold still," Hermione growled, dumping a bucket of water over Pansy's head. "And close your eyes," she added, not wanting the shampoo to sting. Draco laughed, enjoying seeing his friend get what was coming to her after being such a brat.
His laughter ended as Hermione launched herself onto Draco's head, the child now yelling at her to stop and Pansy the one laughing. "Are we done now?" Pansy asked.
"Nope." Hermione handed each child a washrag with soap. "Wash yourselves and then stay in there for a minute while I go get your pajamas. Harry...watch them." The boy nodded miserably, still holding his stomach.
Once Hermione had left, Pansy put a finger to her lips and pointed at the counter next to the bathtub. Crookshanks was lounging on the side, his tail hanging off. With twin smirks, Pansy yanked the cat down and straight into the bathtub.
Draco clamped a hand over the cat's mouth to muffle its yowl. Pansy reached up on the ledge and brought down the shampoo. Squirting almost the entire bottle onto the very upset animal, they began to lather its fur, determined to make the cat clean too.
When Hermione entered the room, her mouth fell open in horror. "Crookshanks!" she cried, dashing over to the children and pulling her cat out of their grasp. "My poor angel, are you all right?"
As a reply, Crookshanks coughed up bubbles and then leapt to the floor, shaking its coat, white suds flying, before he ran from the room with a hiss. "Draco! Pansy! What were you doing?"
"Giving the kitty a bath," Pansy grinned. "He was dirty."
Hermione glanced over at Harry, the other teenager looking guilty. "I didn't even hear them, Mione, I swear!"
"You are impossible!" she yelled, smacking him upside the head. "You two, out of the bath, now." They each pulled a towel off of the rack next to them and climbed out, still smiling impishly.
After they had both dried off, Draco and Pansy got dressed in the pajamas Hermione had brought. Draco's were once more black pants and a tee shirt, and Pansy had on a green nightgown with lace on the cuffs.
"Can you braid my hair, Hermione?" Pansy pleaded, tugging on the girl's sleeve. "I want it to be wavy when I wake up tomorrow! Then those stupid boys won't have to do anything to it!"
Hermione nodded beckoned for the girl to follow her to the common room. Draco and Harry both trooped after, Harry walking doubled over from the kick Pansy had given him.
Seating the girl on the floor in front of her, Hermione began to pull the dark strands of the girl's hair into a tight braid, Draco watching on with interest, Harry collapsing on the couch.
Just as Hermione finished, Leviculus called into the room. "Two young gentleman are here saying they're here to pick up Pansy!"
"Could you please let them in, Leviculus?" Agreeably, the jester swung open to reveal Neville and Blaise, both who walked in, blinking at the bright colors.
"Thanks for watching her, Mione," Neville said, giving his friend a smile. "I hope she wasn't too much trouble."
"Not at all," Hermione said airly, Harry's mouth dropping in surprise. Pansy had been a little demon in his opinion. "Time for you to go, Pansy. It was very nice having you."
"No, thank you for letting me come over," the girl said, dropping into a small curtsy. Both she and Draco gave each other a hug goodbye and with a wave to Hermione and Harry, the girl left, room once more peaceful.
"Can we have Pansy over again tomorrow?" Draco asked.
Both teenagers looked at each other, faces mirroring horror. Then, very clearly, they said together, "no."
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