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Pansy Parkinson made her way down to the Slytherin common room stepping lightly to avoid standing on one of the passed out Slytherin boys strewn down the stairs. The party had definitely been a wild one. She'd had an absolute blast drinking and dancing with her friends before and finishing off her night in bed with Blaise. Honestly, what more was there to want? She reached the common room and grinned when her eyes fell on a large group of revellers who'd awoken from the previous nights festivities in quite obvious pain.

With the grin still in place she glided over to the group and said, "Good morning!" in a loud, happy, cheerful voice eliciting groans from the group who rushed to cover their ears before realizing that rushing of any sort was going to be a bad idea for them today. Pansy laughed; didn't these fools know anything about alcohol? Hydration and a simple spell before they'd gone to bed and they wouldn't be in this condition now.

She could have told them that the night before, but why would she want to? It would deprive her of her favourite activity the morning after a party; teasing the stupid, hung over apes.

"Aw, what's wrong? Does your head hurt?" she asked loudly and with absolutely no sympathy.

"Bugger off, Parkinson!" One of the boys snarled.

"Or what?" she asked.

"Or I'll…I'll…" Groaning the boy reached out and tried to swipe at her only to have her move out of the way. The end result was him crashing to the floor and curling up into a foetal position, groaning and covering his ears as she laughed at him relentlessly. Eventually her laughter died down and she headed out of the common room to find breakfast, the grin still firmly in place. It was a good morning.

As she headed through the halls of Hogwarts her mind wandered to the young Malfoy heir and the cute, little creature he'd hooked up with the previous night. She'd seen them apparated away from the dance floor just before she'd dragged Blaise up to bed and she had to admit she was curious to find out what had come of it.

Draco had never been easily tempted. Quite the opposite actually; he'd never shown more than a fleeting interest in anyone. As far as Pansy knew the head of her house was still a virgin. Well, he had been, she'd bet all the money in her family's Gringot's account that he wasn't anymore.

Pansy's grin grew wider. One thing was for sure, Draco was going to be in a good mood when he finally surfaced. Even if he was hung over, although she doubted he would be, she was pretty sure he hadn't had more than lemonade all night. Draco being in a good mood was good for everyone so today was going to be a good day.

She shook her head as she entered the dining room and noticed the very small number of Slytherin students present. If the Faculty hadn't known about the party before she was pretty sure they'd work it out now. Oh well, what were they going to do about it? It wasn't like the Slytherin's had hurt anyone…except themselves anyway.

She didn't normally mind eating breakfast in silence. This morning however, without someone to talk to and distract her, her thoughts kept flying back to Draco and his little, brunette lover. She had to find out what happened last night, she just had to know, the curiosity was driving her crazy. Were they still together? Were they in Draco's room right now getting it on or had Hannah returned to her own dorm by now? Was this a one night stand or were they thinking about making more of it? She was dying to know. She had no intention of going into Draco's room and waking him up, Merlin knew what she'd find if she did, but the ice prince had to surface eventually and when he did she was going to annoy him until he told her everything.

Her mind wandered back to Hannah. She'd never seen the Gryffindor girl around before. Then again she didn't really pay any attention to the other houses so that wasn't much of a surprise. She looked over at the Gryffindor table to see if the dark haired beauty had made it to breakfast and was completely unsurprised to find that her absent. Pansy could understand that, who would leave Draco Malfoy's bed any earlier than they had to.

There weren't really that many more people at the Gryffindor table than there were on the Slytherin side of the room. The only two she recognized were Granger and Weasley, who, from the looks on their faces, were talking about the end of the world. For a moment Pansy wondered what they were up to; then she went back to ignoring them and thinking about Draco. Who cares what the stupid Gryffindores were talking about, probably some stupid plan they were hatching to get Gryffindor extra house points so they could beat Slytherin again at the end of the year. Pansy didn't care either way, everyone in the school knew Dumbledore was biased and the Gryffindors would always win whether they deserved to or not.

Taking a piece of toast from the plate in the middle of the table she let her mind wander back to Blaise and grinned once more. Draco wasn't the only one who'd had a good night last night.

XX

"Ron we have to do this."

"But I don't want to, Hermione. What if your plan didn't work and he's still…you know…different. He'll want to hex us even more than he did before," the redhead argued.

"Whether it worked or not we have to find out for sure, Ron, otherwise we won't know if Harry still needs our help," Hermione retorted.

"But-" Ron tried to argue again.

"No buts, Ronald, we are going!" Hermione snarled and was up from her chair and at the door to the dining room before Ron could do more than pull a face.

She stomped her way through the castle, Ron trudging along behind her, until she reached the door to Harry's room. She was raising her hand to knock when the painting opened its eyes and froze her with a look.

"Mr. Potter does not wish to be disturbed," it informed her in its loud, booming voice.

"But, we just-"

"Mr. Potter does not wish to be disturbed," it cut her off, the tone in its voice sounding a good deal harsher than it had the first time.

"Ok, ok," Hermione placated the cranky painting holding her hands up in front of her.

"Just answer me this question and we'll go away, all right? Is Mr. Potter…Mr. Potter again?" she asked hoping he understood the question.

The painting studied her for a moment before replying, "Yes, now leave."

Hermione didn't want to leave but she knew she wasn't about to get past the cranky painting and that was the only way into Harry's room. "Fine, we'll go. Please tell Mr. Potter we came by," she asked before turning and walking away, Ron hot on her tail.

"This is great, this is awesome!! Harry's normal again, I'll finally get to see him. It's great, isn't it great, Hermione?" Ron asked her excitedly.

Hermione stopped walking and turned back to face him. "No, Ron, I'm not so sure it is," she replied gravely.

Ron's smile died along with his bouncing enthusiasm and he looked back at her worriedly. "Why wouldn't it be?" he asked.

"You know what we thought Harry might have to do in order to get back to normal. Well, now he's back to normal and he's hiding in his room, what do you think that says about his state of mind at the moment?" Hermione asked.

"It might not be like that Hermione," Ron disagreed. "Maybe he was out all night and he wants to sleep in so he asked the painting to keep everyone away," the redhead suggested.

"Maybe," Hermione conceded, "but I don't know, Ron, I just have this awful feeling that Harry needs us at the moment and it annoys me that we're being kept out."

"It'll be all right," Ron reassured her, "I'm sure he'll come out soon and when he does I'm sure he'll be fine. If he's not, well, we'll deal with it then, but for now, worrying isn't going to help anything."

Hermione looked down and nodded. "I know it's not, I just can't help it. It's my fault he's in this mess, Ron," she said sadly.

"It's 'our' fault," Ron corrected, "and I feel bad about it too. But like I said, worrying isn't going to help anyone. Come on now, don't you have an assignment you're dying to go to the library and research?" He asked.

Hermione smiled at him and shook her head. Ron didn't want her to remember any school work he might get dragged into, he was just trying to distract her and he was putting himself in the line of fire to do it. She knew he had other things he'd wanted to do today, but he was willing to give them up for her and because of that she had to at least pretend it was helping.

"Yeah, actually there is. We have a charms assignment due in a few weeks, we should get started on it," she replied with a grin heading off down the hall to the library before the redhead could reply. She heard him groan behind her before the telltale sound of footsteps told her he was jogging to catch up. Ron really was a sucker for punishment and she loved him for it.

XX

It was Sunday afternoon before Harry finally emerged from his room and it was only because he knew Dumbledore would want to know he was all right now. He plastered a fake smile on his face and headed to the headmaster's office, hoping he wouldn't run into anyone on the way. Of course that hope was all in vain.

"Harry!"

He froze when he heard the voice behind him and took a few deep, calming breaths before turning around to face his friends who were rushing over to him.

"Hi guys," he greeted in a friendly tone when they were close enough for him to talk normally.

"Harry, are you all right? We've been so worried about you," Hermione asked as soon as she stopped running.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine," he lied with his fake smile still in place. "I'm back to being me so I'm great."

"See, I told you he was fine," Ron said bumping Hermione lightly with his arm. "You worry too much, Hermione."

Trust Ron to be clueless.

"So did you have to, you know?" Ron asked and Harry was caught between the desire to break down into tears, strangle Ron for asking that question or laugh at how uncomfortable the other boy looked right at that moment. He knew he couldn't tell the truth, if he did the other two would want to know who he'd been with and what had happened and of course Hermione would ask a million questions because she liked to know details. He couldn't handle that right now so he did the only thing he could do, he lied.

"No, no I didn't have to do anything actually. I wandered around the party trying to find someone I could stomach being anywhere near me and sadly came up empty. Eventually I gave up and headed back to my room to go to bed. When I woke up the next morning I was me again." Harry shrugged. "I guess I just had to wait it out."

Yep, he definitely should have been a Slytherin; he was far too good at lying.

"If nothing happened why were you hiding in your room for all this time?" Hermione asked sounding not at all convinced.

"I finally got my body back, I wanted to enjoy it for a while," Harry replied. "And if you're wondering why I wasn't enjoying it out with everyone else, it's because I wanted to keep my body for a while," he finished giving the pair an accusatory glare.
"Don't think you've gotten out of making that up to me by the way, either of you," he added continuing on his way to Dumbledore's office.

The pair caught up to him quickly, both sporting guilty, apologetic looks.

"We're sorry, Harry," Hermione said quietly, "We didn't mean for this to happen."
She felt bad and Harry knew she did. So did Ron, even if the other boy had spent a good portion of the first day after it happened laughing at him. He knew this and he knew Hermione at least would never stop feeling guilty for what happened but he couldn't bring himself to console her or make her feel better about it. He was torn up inside right now. He was hurt and confused and sad and it was their fault. Even if the curse had been an accident it was their fault he felt this way and he wasn't about to let them get away with it, friends or not.

"I know you're sorry, Hermione," he replied without stopping. "I know you didn't mean for any of this to happen and I know it was an accident, but that doesn't change the fact that it happened. You were angry at Ron, I get it, but you shouldn't be hurling curses around the room because of it. And as for you," he turned his attention to Ron. "You knew she was getting annoyed with you and you kept baiting her anyway, this is just as much your fault as hers, maybe even more so."

"But, Harry-"

"No, Ron, no buts, this isn't a time for buts, this is a time for 'yes, Harry, you're absolutely right, Harry, I'll never do anything so stupid again, Harry'. You have no idea how hard the last month has been for me and I have no desire to live through anything like it again, so in the future perhaps you should think about what you're doing and be more careful or at least confine your petty little spats to areas where the rest of aren't in the line of fire. Do you think you can handle that?" Harry snarled finally stopping and turning back to study his shocked friends.

Hermione and Ron studied him with eyes the size of dinner plates for several moments before nodding dumbly.

"Good," he replied as evenly as he could. "Now, I have to see Dumbledore, I'll see you back at the common room," he finished before continuing on his way, thankful not to hear any footsteps behind him.

If he had have glanced back even for a moment he would have seen Hermione turn to Ron and ask, "Still think he's fine, Ron?"

XX

Pansy paced outside Draco's door. It had been almost two days since she'd seen the ice prince and she knew something was wrong. He should have come out on Saturday morning, of even afternoon would have been fine, with a big, gloating smile on his face and told her all about Friday night's events. He hadn't though, he'd been locked up in his room all weekend and the painting of Salazar wasn't letting anyone in.

She'd all but begged the painting to go and ask Draco again if she could please come in and he'd disappeared with a grumble about annoying brats but at least he was asking. She was worried about her friend; she really needed to know he was okay.

Salazar returned to the painting and said. "Mr. Malfoy's exact response was, "Leave me the fuck alone," and I promised to deliver it exactly as it was delivered to me so I have. Go away now, you're annoying me," The Slytherin creator dismissed her before disappearing into the back ground of his painting.

This was bad, Draco didn't swear unless he was really upset. She knew it was pointless to try and get in anymore so she headed back to the common room to wait for the ice prince to emerge on his own. What the hell had happened on Friday night?

Xxx

Monday morning arrived far too soon for Harry's liking and he dragged himself out of bed only after the painting of Godrick threatened to send word through the ghosts to Madame Pomfrey that he was ill. Madame Pomfrey would fill him up with awful tasting medicines and make him go to the hospital wing for tests. Then all his friends would come and fuss and by the time Pomfrey had worked out that he was fine she'd be so cranky that she'd give him detention with Professor Snape for lying to her and his friends would start badgering him with questions about what was wrong with him, because it must be bad if he was faking sickness. No, he definitely didn't want that.

He pulled on his robes, chucked his wand in his pocket and barely glanced at himself in the mirror before trudging out of the room down to breakfast. He paused to plaster a fake smile on his face as he reached the door to the dining hall and took a deep, calming breath before walking in to face the rest of the school. Hermione immediately waved him over to the spot she and Ron had left free for him and he sat down with a fake, happy good morning to everyone. They all replied in kind, although he was pretty sure theirs were real, and returned to eating.

"Are you all right, Harry?" Hermione asked the expected question.

"I'm great, how are you," he replied immediately focusing his attention solely on the food in front of him and not her.

"Are you sure?" she asked. "You seemed a little-"

He cut her off not wanting to have this conversation right now. "Look, I just want to forget what happened and move on, could you please just let this go so I can," he asked quietly a mixture of anger and desperation in his voice. "Please," he added again when it looked like she was going to argue.

Hermione studied him for a few moments longer before nodding. "Okay," she replied quietly turning her attention back to her food even though he could tell she didn't believe him and it looked like she wanted to grab him and shake the truth out of him.

"Thank you," he replied quietly and turned his attention back to his own food, even though he really didn't feel like eating. He pushed the food around on his plate, occasionally taking a tiny bite in case there was someone watching him, which there almost always was. Finally the bell went for the students to head to their first lesson and he stood up, grateful for the first time in his life to be going to class.

He walked with his head down, not really paying attention to the people around him until a familiar smell suddenly filled his nose and he looked up to find Draco walking just in front of him. The young Slytherin's scent was as perfect as it had been Friday night and before Harry could stop them, images of what he and Draco had done that night flew unbidden into his head, making his eyes prickle with tears.

He looked down once more, hoping like hell no one would notice, and blinked them away. Crying wasn't going to help anything and he'd done more than his fair share of that already. As the students reached the doorway they began to split off. Harry looked up to make sure he wasn't going to run into any of them and his eyes fell on the Slytherin ice prince's face. He was hoping to see Draco smiling and happy…he wasn't.

Draco walked with his head down and a look of loss and hurt in his eyes lovely, silver eyes. His friends walked silently around him exchanging worried glances, especially Parkinson who looked like she wanted nothing more than to shake what was wrong out of him like Hermione had been with Harry this morning.

Harry hadn't expected this. He'd wanted Draco to be happy, to have a good memory to look back on and smile. But Draco wasn't smiling, he was hurt and even though Draco could very well be unhappy about something else, somehow Harry knew he wasn't. It was Harry's fault Draco was upset and he knew it.

As if sensing that he was being watched Draco's gaze turned to Harry and Harry felt the full force of the pain he'd inflicted on the ice prince. Tears gathered at his eyes once more and he tore his gaze away from Draco before heading away from the other boy as quickly as he could.

It wasn't fair, why did all this crap have to happen to him? Why couldn't the curse have hit Ron instead, or even Dean; he already had a boyfriend, it would have been easy for him to fix himself. Harry hated himself more than he'd ever thought he possibly could right now and he hated Hermione and Ron by extension.

He also felt a mild hatred for Draco in the middle of it all. Why couldn't the boy have just enjoyed his evening and moved on? It wasn't like Draco had been in love with Hannah; he'd only met her a few hours before they did anything so why was he so upset?

He arrived at his first class and dropped down at his desk letting his face drop onto the pillow he'd made with his arms. His anger at Draco wasn't real and he knew it, he was just trying to find other people to lash out at even if only in his mind.

"Harry are you all right?" he heard the dreaded question come from the dreaded person.

"Are you okay mate?" the question was mimicked by another dreaded person.

Harry gave some consideration to telling them to fuck off; he really just wanted to be left alone. Instead he leant up, fully intent on giving them another lecture to vent some of his anger. Before he could speak however, Ron smiled and said.

"See, Hermione, I told you he was just tired."

The words that came out of Harry's mouth weren't a lecture, they were a spell.
"Pullus Canis Equus." He honestly hadn't expected it to work since his wand wasn't in his hand. It did however, and as Hermione stared at Ron shocked by the spell's effects, Harry turned his attention to her. "Pluvia ver," he called out this time pointing his wand at her.

As the spell hit her and started to take effect Harry felt some of his anger melt away and he began to laugh maniacally. That would teach his friends not to mistakenly hex him again.

XXX

Pansy was sitting in her first class of the day, ignoring the teacher in favour of worrying about the young Malfoy sitting beside her. He wouldn't tell her what was wrong, in fact he'd barely spoken to any of them at all and that was troubling.
The giggling of several students drew her attention to the fact that someone was walking past the windows of their class room and she looked outside to see what it was that had drawn so much attention. She had to cover her mouth to keep from breaking into hysterical laughter as her gaze fell on three students walking with a teacher toward the principal's office. Well, when she said walking that wasn't entirely true of all of them. Harry Potter was walking at the front of the group beside Professor McGonagall, both of whom looked pissed.

Behind them was the youngest Weasley boy. He had his arms folded at his sides and waving up and down like he was impersonating a chicken. With each step he took his head jutted forward and he was constantly making loud, clucking noises. Behind him the granger girl didn't walk so much as lumber. Her face was the only part of her body currently visible and it looked for all the world as if someone had removed it and stuck it on to the body of a polar bear. What made the picture even funnier was that the fur currently covering her body, in addition to being rainbow coloured; had also coiled into tight springs that bounced as she walked. The hair on her head had done the same as had her eyebrows and she had a multicoloured, springy moustache growing under her nose.

The class was trying to contain their laughter, sniggering behind their hands and quietly giggling so as not to get into trouble from their professor. Then, Hermione tripped on something and fell, but rather than landing on the ground with a thud, she sprung back up onto her feet with a loud BOING. She was there only a few moments before she overbalanced and fell backwards resulting in another loud BOING and Hermione bouncing back to her feet before falling forwards once more. That did it for Pansy and apparently the rest of the class too because they all erupted into fits of hysterical laughter.

Granger continued to bounce backwards and forwards on the ground until Ron came over and tried to help her. The end result of his assistance was him falling face down on the ground and Granger continuing to bounce on top of him with every forward fall. Loud clucks erupted from his lips every time she landed on him and the laughter in the room increased. After several more bounces and clucks McGonagall managed to levitate Granger back to her feet and helped Weasley to his. After allowing them both a moment to recover they continued on their way to the principal's office with McGonagall glaring at the students in Pansy's class as they passed.

The laughter continued for several minutes with the professor having seen what was going on outside and not even bothering to call the class to order. He was a smart man; he recognized a losing battle when he saw one. Eventually the Gryffindor group rounded a corner out of site and the class finally managed to start composing themselves. In the end it was only ten minutes lost of the lesson, but it had certainly been a welcome break as far as the students were concerned.

It wasn't until the class had calmed down completely and the professor was speaking again that Pansy remembered something odd about the scene that had just unfolded outside. Potter hadn't helped either of the other two recover from their predicament; he'd just stood there and watched Granger bounce on Weasley. That was odd indeed; they were supposed to be friends. She turned to Draco to tell him of her observation only to realize something else that was weird about what had just happened; Draco hadn't laughed, from the look on his face he hadn't even noticed that the class were laughing around him.

"Draco," she said his name quietly reaching out to shake his arm.

He turned to face her with dull, gray eyes and asked, "What?"

"Did you even see what just happened?" she asked.

"Did it involve Blaise shooting a Gryffindor? Because otherwise I don't care," Draco replied turning his attention back to his book. Pansy studied him for a moment before reaching out to cover his closest hand with hers. She didn't know what was wrong, but it was a testament to just how upset he was that he didn't pull away

XXX

Description
Pansy Parkinson made her way down to the Slytherin common room stepping lightly to avoid standing on one of the passed out Slytherin boys strewn down the stairs. The party had definitely been a wild one. She'd had an absolute blast drinking and dancing with her friends before and finishing off her night in bed with Blaise. Honestly, what more was there to want? She reached the common room and grinned when her eyes fell on a large group of revellers who'd awoken from the previous nights festivities in quite obvious pain.

With the grin still in place she glided over to the group and said, "Good morning!" in a loud, happy, cheerful voice eliciting groans from the group who rushed to cover their ears before realizing that rushing of any sort was going to be a bad idea for them today. Pansy laughed; didn't these fools know anything about alcohol? Hydration and a simple spell before they'd gone to bed and they wouldn't be in this condition now.

She could have told them that the night before, but why would she want to? It would deprive her of her favourite activity the morning after a party; teasing the stupid, hung over apes.

"Aw, what's wrong? Does your head hurt?" she asked loudly and with absolutely no sympathy.

"Bugger off, Parkinson!" One of the boys snarled.

"Or what?" she asked.

"Or I'll…I'll…" Groaning the boy reached out and tried to swipe at her only to have her move out of the way. The end result was him crashing to the floor and curling up into a foetal position, groaning and covering his ears as she laughed at him relentlessly. Eventually her laughter died down and she headed out of the common room to find breakfast, the grin still firmly in place. It was a good morning.

As she headed through the halls of Hogwarts her mind wandered to the young Malfoy heir and the cute, little creature he'd hooked up with the previous night. She'd seen them apparated away from the dance floor just before she'd dragged Blaise up to bed and she had to admit she was curious to find out what had come of it.

Draco had never been easily tempted. Quite the opposite actually; he'd never shown more than a fleeting interest in anyone. As far as Pansy knew the head of her house was still a virgin. Well, he had been, she'd bet all the money in her family's Gringot's account that he wasn't anymore.

Pansy's grin grew wider. One thing was for sure, Draco was going to be in a good mood when he finally surfaced. Even if he was hung over, although she doubted he would be, she was pretty sure he hadn't had more than lemonade all night. Draco being in a good mood was good for everyone so today was going to be a good day.

She shook her head as she entered the dining room and noticed the very small number of Slytherin students present. If the Faculty hadn't known about the party before she was pretty sure they'd work it out now. Oh well, what were they going to do about it? It wasn't like the Slytherin's had hurt anyone…except themselves anyway.

She didn't normally mind eating breakfast in silence. This morning however, without someone to talk to and distract her, her thoughts kept flying back to Draco and his little, brunette lover. She had to find out what happened last night, she just had to know, the curiosity was driving her crazy. Were they still together? Were they in Draco's room right now getting it on or had Hannah returned to her own dorm by now? Was this a one night stand or were they thinking about making more of it? She was dying to know. She had no intention of going into Draco's room and waking him up, Merlin knew what she'd find if she did, but the ice prince had to surface eventually and when he did she was going to annoy him until he told her everything.

Her mind wandered back to Hannah. She'd never seen the Gryffindor girl around before. Then again she didn't really pay any attention to the other houses so that wasn't much of a surprise. She looked over at the Gryffindor table to see if the dark haired beauty had made it to breakfast and was completely unsurprised to find that her absent. Pansy could understand that, who would leave Draco Malfoy's bed any earlier than they had to.

There weren't really that many more people at the Gryffindor table than there were on the Slytherin side of the room. The only two she recognized were Granger and Weasley, who, from the looks on their faces, were talking about the end of the world. For a moment Pansy wondered what they were up to; then she went back to ignoring them and thinking about Draco. Who cares what the stupid Gryffindores were talking about, probably some stupid plan they were hatching to get Gryffindor extra house points so they could beat Slytherin again at the end of the year. Pansy didn't care either way, everyone in the school knew Dumbledore was biased and the Gryffindors would always win whether they deserved to or not.

Taking a piece of toast from the plate in the middle of the table she let her mind wander back to Blaise and grinned once more. Draco wasn't the only one who'd had a good night last night.

XX

"Ron we have to do this."

"But I don't want to, Hermione. What if your plan didn't work and he's still…you know…different. He'll want to hex us even more than he did before," the redhead argued.

"Whether it worked or not we have to find out for sure, Ron, otherwise we won't know if Harry still needs our help," Hermione retorted.

"But-" Ron tried to argue again.

"No buts, Ronald, we are going!" Hermione snarled and was up from her chair and at the door to the dining room before Ron could do more than pull a face.

She stomped her way through the castle, Ron trudging along behind her, until she reached the door to Harry's room. She was raising her hand to knock when the painting opened its eyes and froze her with a look.

"Mr. Potter does not wish to be disturbed," it informed her in its loud, booming voice.

"But, we just-"

"Mr. Potter does not wish to be disturbed," it cut her off, the tone in its voice sounding a good deal harsher than it had the first time.

"Ok, ok," Hermione placated the cranky painting holding her hands up in front of her.

"Just answer me this question and we'll go away, all right? Is Mr. Potter…Mr. Potter again?" she asked hoping he understood the question.

The painting studied her for a moment before replying, "Yes, now leave."

Hermione didn't want to leave but she knew she wasn't about to get past the cranky painting and that was the only way into Harry's room. "Fine, we'll go. Please tell Mr. Potter we came by," she asked before turning and walking away, Ron hot on her tail.

"This is great, this is awesome!! Harry's normal again, I'll finally get to see him. It's great, isn't it great, Hermione?" Ron asked her excitedly.

Hermione stopped walking and turned back to face him. "No, Ron, I'm not so sure it is," she replied gravely.

Ron's smile died along with his bouncing enthusiasm and he looked back at her worriedly. "Why wouldn't it be?" he asked.

"You know what we thought Harry might have to do in order to get back to normal. Well, now he's back to normal and he's hiding in his room, what do you think that says about his state of mind at the moment?" Hermione asked.

"It might not be like that Hermione," Ron disagreed. "Maybe he was out all night and he wants to sleep in so he asked the painting to keep everyone away," the redhead suggested.

"Maybe," Hermione conceded, "but I don't know, Ron, I just have this awful feeling that Harry needs us at the moment and it annoys me that we're being kept out."

"It'll be all right," Ron reassured her, "I'm sure he'll come out soon and when he does I'm sure he'll be fine. If he's not, well, we'll deal with it then, but for now, worrying isn't going to help anything."

Hermione looked down and nodded. "I know it's not, I just can't help it. It's my fault he's in this mess, Ron," she said sadly.

"It's 'our' fault," Ron corrected, "and I feel bad about it too. But like I said, worrying isn't going to help anyone. Come on now, don't you have an assignment you're dying to go to the library and research?" He asked.

Hermione smiled at him and shook her head. Ron didn't want her to remember any school work he might get dragged into, he was just trying to distract her and he was putting himself in the line of fire to do it. She knew he had other things he'd wanted to do today, but he was willing to give them up for her and because of that she had to at least pretend it was helping.

"Yeah, actually there is. We have a charms assignment due in a few weeks, we should get started on it," she replied with a grin heading off down the hall to the library before the redhead could reply. She heard him groan behind her before the telltale sound of footsteps told her he was jogging to catch up. Ron really was a sucker for punishment and she loved him for it.

XX

It was Sunday afternoon before Harry finally emerged from his room and it was only because he knew Dumbledore would want to know he was all right now. He plastered a fake smile on his face and headed to the headmaster's office, hoping he wouldn't run into anyone on the way. Of course that hope was all in vain.

"Harry!"

He froze when he heard the voice behind him and took a few deep, calming breaths before turning around to face his friends who were rushing over to him.

"Hi guys," he greeted in a friendly tone when they were close enough for him to talk normally.

"Harry, are you all right? We've been so worried about you," Hermione asked as soon as she stopped running.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine," he lied with his fake smile still in place. "I'm back to being me so I'm great."

"See, I told you he was fine," Ron said bumping Hermione lightly with his arm. "You worry too much, Hermione."

Trust Ron to be clueless.

"So did you have to, you know?" Ron asked and Harry was caught between the desire to break down into tears, strangle Ron for asking that question or laugh at how uncomfortable the other boy looked right at that moment. He knew he couldn't tell the truth, if he did the other two would want to know who he'd been with and what had happened and of course Hermione would ask a million questions because she liked to know details. He couldn't handle that right now so he did the only thing he could do, he lied.

"No, no I didn't have to do anything actually. I wandered around the party trying to find someone I could stomach being anywhere near me and sadly came up empty. Eventually I gave up and headed back to my room to go to bed. When I woke up the next morning I was me again." Harry shrugged. "I guess I just had to wait it out."

Yep, he definitely should have been a Slytherin; he was far too good at lying.

"If nothing happened why were you hiding in your room for all this time?" Hermione asked sounding not at all convinced.

"I finally got my body back, I wanted to enjoy it for a while," Harry replied. "And if you're wondering why I wasn't enjoying it out with everyone else, it's because I wanted to keep my body for a while," he finished giving the pair an accusatory glare.
"Don't think you've gotten out of making that up to me by the way, either of you," he added continuing on his way to Dumbledore's office.

The pair caught up to him quickly, both sporting guilty, apologetic looks.

"We're sorry, Harry," Hermione said quietly, "We didn't mean for this to happen."
She felt bad and Harry knew she did. So did Ron, even if the other boy had spent a good portion of the first day after it happened laughing at him. He knew this and he knew Hermione at least would never stop feeling guilty for what happened but he couldn't bring himself to console her or make her feel better about it. He was torn up inside right now. He was hurt and confused and sad and it was their fault. Even if the curse had been an accident it was their fault he felt this way and he wasn't about to let them get away with it, friends or not.

"I know you're sorry, Hermione," he replied without stopping. "I know you didn't mean for any of this to happen and I know it was an accident, but that doesn't change the fact that it happened. You were angry at Ron, I get it, but you shouldn't be hurling curses around the room because of it. And as for you," he turned his attention to Ron. "You knew she was getting annoyed with you and you kept baiting her anyway, this is just as much your fault as hers, maybe even more so."

"But, Harry-"

"No, Ron, no buts, this isn't a time for buts, this is a time for 'yes, Harry, you're absolutely right, Harry, I'll never do anything so stupid again, Harry'. You have no idea how hard the last month has been for me and I have no desire to live through anything like it again, so in the future perhaps you should think about what you're doing and be more careful or at least confine your petty little spats to areas where the rest of aren't in the line of fire. Do you think you can handle that?" Harry snarled finally stopping and turning back to study his shocked friends.

Hermione and Ron studied him with eyes the size of dinner plates for several moments before nodding dumbly.

"Good," he replied as evenly as he could. "Now, I have to see Dumbledore, I'll see you back at the common room," he finished before continuing on his way, thankful not to hear any footsteps behind him.

If he had have glanced back even for a moment he would have seen Hermione turn to Ron and ask, "Still think he's fine, Ron?"

XX

Pansy paced outside Draco's door. It had been almost two days since she'd seen the ice prince and she knew something was wrong. He should have come out on Saturday morning, of even afternoon would have been fine, with a big, gloating smile on his face and told her all about Friday night's events. He hadn't though, he'd been locked up in his room all weekend and the painting of Salazar wasn't letting anyone in.

She'd all but begged the painting to go and ask Draco again if she could please come in and he'd disappeared with a grumble about annoying brats but at least he was asking. She was worried about her friend; she really needed to know he was okay.

Salazar returned to the painting and said. "Mr. Malfoy's exact response was, "Leave me the fuck alone," and I promised to deliver it exactly as it was delivered to me so I have. Go away now, you're annoying me," The Slytherin creator dismissed her before disappearing into the back ground of his painting.

This was bad, Draco didn't swear unless he was really upset. She knew it was pointless to try and get in anymore so she headed back to the common room to wait for the ice prince to emerge on his own. What the hell had happened on Friday night?

Xxx

Monday morning arrived far too soon for Harry's liking and he dragged himself out of bed only after the painting of Godrick threatened to send word through the ghosts to Madame Pomfrey that he was ill. Madame Pomfrey would fill him up with awful tasting medicines and make him go to the hospital wing for tests. Then all his friends would come and fuss and by the time Pomfrey had worked out that he was fine she'd be so cranky that she'd give him detention with Professor Snape for lying to her and his friends would start badgering him with questions about what was wrong with him, because it must be bad if he was faking sickness. No, he definitely didn't want that.

He pulled on his robes, chucked his wand in his pocket and barely glanced at himself in the mirror before trudging out of the room down to breakfast. He paused to plaster a fake smile on his face as he reached the door to the dining hall and took a deep, calming breath before walking in to face the rest of the school. Hermione immediately waved him over to the spot she and Ron had left free for him and he sat down with a fake, happy good morning to everyone. They all replied in kind, although he was pretty sure theirs were real, and returned to eating.

"Are you all right, Harry?" Hermione asked the expected question.

"I'm great, how are you," he replied immediately focusing his attention solely on the food in front of him and not her.

"Are you sure?" she asked. "You seemed a little-"

He cut her off not wanting to have this conversation right now. "Look, I just want to forget what happened and move on, could you please just let this go so I can," he asked quietly a mixture of anger and desperation in his voice. "Please," he added again when it looked like she was going to argue.

Hermione studied him for a few moments longer before nodding. "Okay," she replied quietly turning her attention back to her food even though he could tell she didn't believe him and it looked like she wanted to grab him and shake the truth out of him.

"Thank you," he replied quietly and turned his attention back to his own food, even though he really didn't feel like eating. He pushed the food around on his plate, occasionally taking a tiny bite in case there was someone watching him, which there almost always was. Finally the bell went for the students to head to their first lesson and he stood up, grateful for the first time in his life to be going to class.

He walked with his head down, not really paying attention to the people around him until a familiar smell suddenly filled his nose and he looked up to find Draco walking just in front of him. The young Slytherin's scent was as perfect as it had been Friday night and before Harry could stop them, images of what he and Draco had done that night flew unbidden into his head, making his eyes prickle with tears.

He looked down once more, hoping like hell no one would notice, and blinked them away. Crying wasn't going to help anything and he'd done more than his fair share of that already. As the students reached the doorway they began to split off. Harry looked up to make sure he wasn't going to run into any of them and his eyes fell on the Slytherin ice prince's face. He was hoping to see Draco smiling and happy…he wasn't.

Draco walked with his head down and a look of loss and hurt in his eyes lovely, silver eyes. His friends walked silently around him exchanging worried glances, especially Parkinson who looked like she wanted nothing more than to shake what was wrong out of him like Hermione had been with Harry this morning.

Harry hadn't expected this. He'd wanted Draco to be happy, to have a good memory to look back on and smile. But Draco wasn't smiling, he was hurt and even though Draco could very well be unhappy about something else, somehow Harry knew he wasn't. It was Harry's fault Draco was upset and he knew it.

As if sensing that he was being watched Draco's gaze turned to Harry and Harry felt the full force of the pain he'd inflicted on the ice prince. Tears gathered at his eyes once more and he tore his gaze away from Draco before heading away from the other boy as quickly as he could.

It wasn't fair, why did all this crap have to happen to him? Why couldn't the curse have hit Ron instead, or even Dean; he already had a boyfriend, it would have been easy for him to fix himself. Harry hated himself more than he'd ever thought he possibly could right now and he hated Hermione and Ron by extension.

He also felt a mild hatred for Draco in the middle of it all. Why couldn't the boy have just enjoyed his evening and moved on? It wasn't like Draco had been in love with Hannah; he'd only met her a few hours before they did anything so why was he so upset?

He arrived at his first class and dropped down at his desk letting his face drop onto the pillow he'd made with his arms. His anger at Draco wasn't real and he knew it, he was just trying to find other people to lash out at even if only in his mind.

"Harry are you all right?" he heard the dreaded question come from the dreaded person.

"Are you okay mate?" the question was mimicked by another dreaded person.

Harry gave some consideration to telling them to fuck off; he really just wanted to be left alone. Instead he leant up, fully intent on giving them another lecture to vent some of his anger. Before he could speak however, Ron smiled and said.

"See, Hermione, I told you he was just tired."

The words that came out of Harry's mouth weren't a lecture, they were a spell.
"Pullus Canis Equus." He honestly hadn't expected it to work since his wand wasn't in his hand. It did however, and as Hermione stared at Ron shocked by the spell's effects, Harry turned his attention to her. "Pluvia ver," he called out this time pointing his wand at her.

As the spell hit her and started to take effect Harry felt some of his anger melt away and he began to laugh maniacally. That would teach his friends not to mistakenly hex him again.

XXX

Pansy was sitting in her first class of the day, ignoring the teacher in favour of worrying about the young Malfoy sitting beside her. He wouldn't tell her what was wrong, in fact he'd barely spoken to any of them at all and that was troubling.
The giggling of several students drew her attention to the fact that someone was walking past the windows of their class room and she looked outside to see what it was that had drawn so much attention. She had to cover her mouth to keep from breaking into hysterical laughter as her gaze fell on three students walking with a teacher toward the principal's office. Well, when she said walking that wasn't entirely true of all of them. Harry Potter was walking at the front of the group beside Professor McGonagall, both of whom looked pissed.

Behind them was the youngest Weasley boy. He had his arms folded at his sides and waving up and down like he was impersonating a chicken. With each step he took his head jutted forward and he was constantly making loud, clucking noises. Behind him the granger girl didn't walk so much as lumber. Her face was the only part of her body currently visible and it looked for all the world as if someone had removed it and stuck it on to the body of a polar bear. What made the picture even funnier was that the fur currently covering her body, in addition to being rainbow coloured; had also coiled into tight springs that bounced as she walked. The hair on her head had done the same as had her eyebrows and she had a multicoloured, springy moustache growing under her nose.

The class was trying to contain their laughter, sniggering behind their hands and quietly giggling so as not to get into trouble from their professor. Then, Hermione tripped on something and fell, but rather than landing on the ground with a thud, she sprung back up onto her feet with a loud BOING. She was there only a few moments before she overbalanced and fell backwards resulting in another loud BOING and Hermione bouncing back to her feet before falling forwards once more. That did it for Pansy and apparently the rest of the class too because they all erupted into fits of hysterical laughter.

Granger continued to bounce backwards and forwards on the ground until Ron came over and tried to help her. The end result of his assistance was him falling face down on the ground and Granger continuing to bounce on top of him with every forward fall. Loud clucks erupted from his lips every time she landed on him and the laughter in the room increased. After several more bounces and clucks McGonagall managed to levitate Granger back to her feet and helped Weasley to his. After allowing them both a moment to recover they continued on their way to the principal's office with McGonagall glaring at the students in Pansy's class as they passed.

The laughter continued for several minutes with the professor having seen what was going on outside and not even bothering to call the class to order. He was a smart man; he recognized a losing battle when he saw one. Eventually the Gryffindor group rounded a corner out of site and the class finally managed to start composing themselves. In the end it was only ten minutes lost of the lesson, but it had certainly been a welcome break as far as the students were concerned.

It wasn't until the class had calmed down completely and the professor was speaking again that Pansy remembered something odd about the scene that had just unfolded outside. Potter hadn't helped either of the other two recover from their predicament; he'd just stood there and watched Granger bounce on Weasley. That was odd indeed; they were supposed to be friends. She turned to Draco to tell him of her observation only to realize something else that was weird about what had just happened; Draco hadn't laughed, from the look on his face he hadn't even noticed that the class were laughing around him.

"Draco," she said his name quietly reaching out to shake his arm.

He turned to face her with dull, gray eyes and asked, "What?"

"Did you even see what just happened?" she asked.

"Did it involve Blaise shooting a Gryffindor? Because otherwise I don't care," Draco replied turning his attention back to his book. Pansy studied him for a moment before reaching out to cover his closest hand with hers. She didn't know what was wrong, but it was a testament to just how upset he was that he didn't pull away

XXX