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Quite honestly? I don’t think I’ve ever been quite as shocked as I was when I discovered that my room-mate, Draco Malfoy was a practical joker.
I mean, it didn’t make any sense at all. The Malfoy that I remebered from school was a prim, stuck-up arse.
As far as I concerned, wizards like Draco were born devoid of a sense of humour. Must be all that Pureblood nonsense, I’d thought. Any kind of joy or happiness seemed to have been bred out of them, replaced by lots of talk about honour and tradition. In all the years that we were at school together, I don’t even think I ever Draco him smile, except when he was taking the piss.
Well, anyway, it turns out that I was mistaken. Malfoy’s appetite for pranks, jokes and tricks is immense. Ron says that it’s only to be expected and that his room-mate, Blaise is nearly as bad.
Did you know, Slytherin alumni make up the biggest percentage of Wheezes customers? Seems that in the House of the Snake, practical jokes are a form of affection. I know! It astonished me too. Apparently, for a Slytherin, it’s far easier to tell a person that you like them by jinxing their hair brush to jump out their hands- and run away- than it is to say it aloud.
I’ll admit, when I arrived at Auror Training College I didn’t want to share my quarters with Draco. Even thought we’d officially ‘made friends’ I secretly still believed the wizard was a fastidious prat, far too concerned with his looks and image to really cut loose and have a laugh. I wanted to share with Ron; thought that’d be a right giggle. I didn’t want to tiptoe around Malfoy, unable to belch, scratch or even break wind without his haughty disapproval.
As you can imagine, those first few days sharing were a bit tense. Draco seemed as wary as I, but the furious arguments and raised wands that I’d envisioned never came to pass. We practised our duelling exercises, played practice Qudditch and I even let Draco introduce me to his posh Earl Grey tea. Life with Malfoy was pretty amicable, really.
Well. It was until the great Prank War began.
Draco’s opening salvo was small and subtle, the smart arse.
He magicked all of my gym clothes.
You can picture my horror when I unpacked my bag to find several images of Gawain Robards stuck to my clothes with a semi-permanent sticking spell. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t undo the enchantment and I had to do my workout with a picture of my boss stuck on my backside. Even that bloody traitor Ron was laughing by the end of the session, as were the rest of the recruits. I, of course, swore immediate revenge. I’d been in far worse scrapes than this before and always came out on top.
Draco Malfoy was going down.
Later that night, I swapped up his shampoo with a dyeing lotion that I’d owl ordered from the Apothecary. I charmed the bottle to look like the fancy stuff he brought from Paris and sure enough, Malfoy fell for it. His perfect locks were a winning maroon for the next few days.
We spent the next few weeks doing our best to one-up each other.
Draco added a voice-altering potion to my breakfast, which resulted in my presentation about defensive spells being given in the voice of a House Elf.
I purchased a toy spider from the Diagon Alley toy emporium and every so often Engorgio’d it to the size of an Acromantula. That was a joke that never got old.
So, you can envisage my reaction when I found a gold-trimmed invite to the Ministry Beltane Ball sat atop my dressing table. “Mr. Draco Malfoy has requested your attendance as his special guest,” I scoffed, reading aloud. “Please wear formal robes.”
I marched through into our joint living room, and slapped the card loudly onto the table. Draco looked up from where he’d been reading, his face perplexed.
“You must think I’m daft,” I laughed, charming the invite into a paper plane and sending it flying into Malfoy’s lap. “I’d turn up in my best robes to an empty bloody room, or else you’ll Portkey me to a swamp or something-”
Draco’s face coloured as he undid the plane and looked at the invite.
“You’ve got me,” Draco said quietly, screwing up the card and throwing it over his shoulder. “Couldn’t get this joke past the great Harry Potter.”
I’ll admit, things have been a little quiet on the practical joke front since I foiled Draco’s Beltane Ball plot. I almost feel like Malfoy might be avoiding me, though for the love of Merlin I can’t think why. It’s a real pity; we were starting to get on brilliantly.
Like I said to Hermione the other night: I almost wish Draco’s invite had been the real deal.
I’d have said yes immediately.