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It was the year after The Battle At Hogwarts, and almost all of the students in Pansy's year had come back to finish their studies at Hogwarts. After all, their seventh year was utterly foiled by Voldemort. They all shared a common room, regardless of their House, and they took the same classes. After all fighting against the Dark Lord, there was a sort of camaraderie between them anyway, so the classes weren't so bad. One might say that they even enjoyed it. Barriers between Gryffindor and Slytherin had fallen (well, for the most part), along with many other ridiculous House prejudices.
It was no surprise, then, that no one wanted to return home for Christmas break. There was a sort of safe hominess at Hogwarts. Everything had changed back at home: people had lost family members, their homes were destroyed, and their inner selves were affected by the war, too. It was just safer, more logical, to stay at school.
And if there were any doubts about staying before, they were all going to be eliminated once Pansy had announced her plans for a huge clandestine party in the Room of Requirement. She announced it two weeks before the start of Christmas Break. Nearly everyone was gathered in the common room, so Pansy sprung on her chance. If anyone missed it, she was sure they would be informed by friends. This was going to be too good to miss.
"Hey, everyone!" She shouted, casting a Sonorous charm and standing on top of a table in front of the hearth. "You'll all want to hear this, believe me. It's much more exciting than anything you might be studying." She felt Granger give her a harsh glare from her place in the Weasel's lap, but she ignored it.
"Midway through Christmas break, there's going to be a party in the Room of Requirement. You'll want to be there," she explained, casting her gaze around the room. A group of Ravenclaw girls were rolling their eyes, and Pansy scoffed at them. "In case a party hosted by me wasn't appealing enough in the first place, I'll have you know this party is quite special." Pansy sniffed, and held her nose in the air indignantly. "It's going to be a Polyjuice Party."
She smirked and lowered her gaze to look around the room as hushed chatter broke out throughout the room. Some Hufflepuff--Macmillan was his name, she thought--locked gazes with her.
"And what does a Polyjuice Party denote, Parkinson?" He demanded, and more chatter broke out at the question.
Pansy smiled at him with saccharine sweetness. "Why, I'm so glad you asked, little badger boy. A Polyjuice Party is a bit akin to a costume party... Except instead of costumes, you'll all drink Polyjuice before arriving."
The room turned silent, but Pansy could feel the excited energy filling the room. She saw hopes and possibilities bubbling up on their faces. Even Draco looked like he had something in mind, and Pansy winked at him, Slytherin to Slytherin. She would have to ask him about what he was planning later.
"Where will we be getting the Polyjuice, then? You do realize it takes a very long time to brew." Mother of all surprises, it was Potter who spoke up.
Pansy raised an eyebrow with him. "Oh ye of little faith, wonder boy. I've been planning this for a while, you know. I'm not stupid." She gave her best sneer. How dared they think she was unprepared? "The Polyjuice is already brewing. I'll supply it to you all the week before the party."
She heard someone mutter something about being surprised considering her lacking potions skills, but she didn't have the patience or the focus who find out who it was and hex them. Luna Lovegood was speaking.
"And whose hair will we be using?" She asked, her soft, dreamy voice reaching out to ring in Pansy's ears.
"Loony, lovey, I think that'll be a matter of your own choosing, to find the hair. And in case you don't manage to harvest someone's hair," she glanced around the room, as if smelling out the incompetence, "I will have some on hand for you. Just don't expect it to be anybody pretty." She smirked, and let everyone see the malicious glint in her eye. Granger shifted away, and she noticed it was because the Weasley rat was shifting uncomfortably. Pansy had acquired a piece of Hagrid's hair, just for him, because she knew he wouldn't be able to get the hair.
Unless he stole some from Potter. Wouldn't that be rich.
A few other people gulped and jittered, and Pansy smirked. Yes, this was very good.
"If you don't have any more questions right now, you're free to return to whatever you were doing. And if you have any more private questions, feel free to ask me later on."
With that, she dropped the Sonorous charm and stepped off the table, and eagerly awaited to see what would happen next.
Draco waited a few days before he approached Pansy about the party. If she knew exactly how excited he was, she'd never let him live it down. But he did need her advice in order for his plan to work.
He approached her over the weekend as they walked to Hogsmead. He cast a silencing charm to make sure no one overheard them, and joined arms with her casually.
"Pansy," he said casually as he stepped into pace with her. She smiled at him, that sickly sweet smile that made his insides roil. She really was foul at times, but she was his friend, and she was manipulative, and she was in charge of the party, and he needed her help.
"Draco, darling. What did you need?" She asked.
"I had a question about the party."
"Well, that's clear. I doubt you'd even touch me unless you wanted something from me, isn't that right?" She quirked a knowing eyebrow, the nauseating smile never failing. Draco winced at his own transparency- he had hoped she still believed he tolerated her. And he did, as much as he did any other female that draped herself all over him.
"Well, as you know, I am rather good at potions," he began.
Pansy interrupted him. "Really, Draco, no need to stroke your own feathers over this."
Draco rolled his eyes. "Well, anyway, I am aware it is completely possible for polyjuice to switch one's gender... Would that be allowed at the party?" He asked, feeling extremely embarrassed as the words escaped his mouth.
Pansy withdrew her arm. "Draco, dearest... I knew you were bent, but not that kind of bent!" She laughed lightly, but it was scathing all the same. Draco fought the blush coloring his cheeks, and hoped he could pass it off as the brisk winter weather. He tightened his green Slytherin scarf.
"I'm not. But I'm quite afraid in order to woo a particular wizard, I'll need to be a witch," Draco confessed, once again feeling utterly embarrassed.
Pansy simply laughed and patted his arm. "Oh, no. Ickle Draco has fallen for a straight boy, has he?" she teased. Draco pursed his lips and turned his face away.
Pansy sighed. "Oh, Draco. I won't ask you who it is, but I do think it's rather unfair that you would do that to some poor fellow. You can't take advantage of someone like that; it simply isn't fair! No, you'll have to go as a male." She tutted at him in disapproval. "Besides, they'll know you're under polyjuice. And you can't expect to find them while they're under polyjuice, too, can you?" She asked.
Draco sighed. "I suppose not." He quickened his pace and to get away from her.
It was the week before the party, and Draco had finally found the perfect hair to use for his polyjuice.
Or, so he hoped. It really was a pointless endeavor; they'd all know he was under polyjuce, so they wouldn't be falling for him. Not that anyone would bewon overe by Draco anyway.
He decided that he would have to rely on his personality to win anyone over. And he wouldn't even know who he was winning over. Oh, it all felt so futile.
Had he known who in particular he wanted to find, he would have used a Point Me spell to find them in the midst of the party. But the problem of the matter was, he only knew he was pining, and not which young man he was pining for. And even worse, he told himself, Malfoys shouldn't even pine.
Regardless, he had Neville Longbottom's hair. Had he been told a few years ago that he wanted to polyjuice as Neville Longbottom to attract anyone, he would have thought he had gone mental. But Neville had turned out to be quite fit, albeit not Draco's type. It seemed like an excellent idea to polyjuice as an attractive man he wasn't particularly attracted to. It was simpler that way.
He had snagged the hair on the last day before the break when he had asked Longbottom to help him with a herbology essay. Had he told his past self that he would be asking Longbottom for help with anything a few years ago, he would have assumed madness then as well. But again, Longbottom had proven himself.
Draco briefly wondered where all the admiration for Neville had come from. Perhaps he was his type?
But no, it wasn't so, he decided, as he didn't feel anything particularly marvelous as he imagined himself snogging the snake-slayer against a wall. He stopped himself from imagining anyone else--he certainly wash't going to waste his time daydreaming about kissing every boy in his year to find out who he fancied.
Draco cursed his own Malfoy iciness, and wished for a moment that he knew himself.
It was the night of the Polyjuice Party.
Draco had swallowed his potion with Neville's hair in it--which had turned a peculiar red color not dissimilar to blood--and felt his body morph into something else. His robes still fit, luckily, and he hurried to the Room of Requirement. He wasn't going to waste a single moment of his Polyjuice time. He even had an extra dose tucked into his pocket so he wouldn't reveal himself halfway through the party.
He knew why he was so excited for this, of course. This was a chance to interact with his schoolmates without their prejudices and their preconceived opinions weighing down on him. He could talk to anyone. It was like a fresh start.
He found a hodgepodge group of people waiting in front of the Room of Requirement. Some unfortunate soul had chosen Hagrid's hair, and was dejectedly looking to a Luna Lovegood (who looked all too sane to be the real thing) for comfort. After a few minutes of watching them whisper together concernedly, and watching a copy of Blaise (whose body language was all wrong) joking good naturedly with some lookalike of one of the Patil twins, the doors swung open.
Feeling completely alone and yet surrounded by his schoolmates (and multiple copies of some of them), Draco searched for a familiar face to go and talk to. But then he realized that any familiar face would not actually be the person underneath.
Perhaps this wasn't as brilliant as he had thought.
Eventually, however, he approached the polyjuice of Blaise, assuming that anyone that had gotten close enough to him had to have been alright. After a few minutes of talking, however, he came to the conclusion that this person was, in fact, a girl, and had probably shagged Blaise in order to get the hair. Their movements were all too feminine, and the inflections of their voice were in all the wrong places. He wondered, briefly, if he had already found Pansy, and wandered away in shock.
Not after too much time, which he had spent sulking at the punch table, a Pansy (the only Pansy in the room) floated up to Draco gracefully.
"Who are you and how the hell did you get Pansy's hair?" He demanded, unable to fathom who had outwitted the Slytherin girl.
The not-Pansy smiled. "I kissed her and asked her nicely."
Draco stared in shock, and assumed from the voice and the behavior that it only could have been one person. "Lovegood?" He asked.
Pansy/Lovegood nodded sagely. "You're right, Draco! Of course, I know it's you because I saw you take Neville's hair."
Draco was completely unnerved, both by this creepy Pansy imposter and her knowledge. "There's at least four Nevilles in the room. Surely you can't be certain."
Lovegood in Pansy's body smiled again. "I'm good at recognizing magical signatures." Before Draco could respond, however, the girl drifted away, and Draco was left watching the room again.
He counted three copies of himself. The knowledge that anyone had managed to steal his hair unnerved him, so he demanded answers from each of them. One (Blaise, most likely) had found it on his pillow. Another had pulled it from him walking past him in Potions, crediting it to the frailness of his hair (he had no clue who that was). The third had outright refused to tell him (probably a Gryffindor), saying that unless he was the actual Malfoy, he had no right to know. Draco was not inclined to give himself away, and let it slide.
He ended up staying to talk with his Gryffindor-self. They spoke mostly about Quidditch, at first. Then, the hour had almost past, and the two of them managed to drink from their polyjuice flasks before they had transformed back to themselves. They complimented each other's resourcefulness, and then played the part of the peanut gallery as they discussed and mocked the rest who had failed to come prepared.
The Hagrid had been Weasley (the poor fool), and he was right about the Blaise being a girl. He was also correct about the Pansy being Luna, but there was no surprise there. The real Luna had afterwards spent the rest of the evening snogging a still-polyjuiced copy of Granger (though Weasly hadn't been smart enough to notice), whom he suspected was Pansy. Blaise had ended up being another Neville (which made Draco question his own creativity), and the actual Neville had played one of the Potters.
Once they had grown bored of that subject, they spoke about their own aspirations for the future. Draco himself talked about his desire to become a Healer, which seemed to impress and please his fake self.
"Why do you want to be a Healer, though, exactly?" He had asked.
"Because there's so much wrong in the world. It's all I can do to fix it." The answer had seemed to appease the sense of good in the Gryffindor-Draco. "And you?"
The not-himself shrugged and broke the eye contact they had been holding earnestly. "I've been thinking about becoming an Unspeakable. You know, in the Department of Mysteries. I hear they investigate what's beyond the veil." He looked uncomfortable talking about it, and his voice was much lower.
"Why not become a Necromancer, then?" Draco asked, testing to see how Gryffindor his imposter was.
"I wouldn't touch the Dark Arts. Besides... I've already seen what it's like to communicate with the dead like that. I would rather know about the afterlife itself than the people in it."
Draco had very much liked the answer, despite the fact it was more lion-like than he usually would have desired. He wondered about their experience with the dead, though.
"You lost people, then? In the war?"
"Er, yeah. You could say that," his fake self muttered.
Draco didn't want to press him for any more answers; he saw pain in the other's eyes. They looked like a reflection of his own--which was certainly true--and he felt more sympathetic towards that than anything else.
Another ten minutes passed, and the conversation had yet to cease. Draco could imagine himself pining over this Gryffindor... And he wanted to know exactly who they were.
"The party is dying down," the lion-Draco whispered, taking the real Draco (or Neville's imposter) by the arm. He whispered in his ear, "We ought to get out of here before we get back to normal, yeah?"
Draco's skin tingled in response, and the two exited the room, arm in arm. There was magic crackling in the air between them and adrenaline in their veins, and Draco was intoxicated.
The Draco-imposter ended up dragging him into a broom closet. Draco caught the drift, and leaned in to kiss the reflection of his usual self that was oddly (but unsurprisingly) turning him on. He was interrupted, however, by a finger to his lips.
"Before we do anything, you're a bloke without polyjuice, right?"
Draco laughed and nodded, and leaned into his imposter to whisper in his ear. "Of course. And you bloody well be too, because I'm gay as fuck and I'm ready to snog you senseless." He wrapped his arms around the imposter's waist, and it was eagerly reciprocated.
"You know, Neville turned out pretty fit, but I have to say I never liked his personality much. This is far better," the other man mumbled as he leaned into kiss Draco.
Draco kissed back, darting his tongue in quickly before breaking away to say, "I hate to admit that I feel the same way about your polyjuice get-up."
After that, the kissing was interrupted by no words, only moans and sighs. It was by far the best thing Draco had ever done--this man tasted like peppermint and kissed with a fiery (yet unmistakably Gryffindor) passion, using as much tongue as anything else. He explored Draco's false body as if it was on a timer.
The only thing that made it bad was that it really was on a timer, and Draco wasn't as comfortable in Neville's body, and he kept bumping noses with the face that was usually his own. It was also worrisome that once he transformed back, the other most likely wouldn't want him.
Draco decided he wouldn't care who came out at the other end of the polyjuice. He was smart, clever, bold, and had solid plans for the future and good morals. Not to mention he was a brilliant kisser (or maybe that was just Draco).
It didn't take long before they had nearly undressed each other, and there was skin against skin and kisses on places whereDraco had never been kissed before. He couldn't help but suppress a snicker when he thought that Neville's actual body would never experience something this good.
And before he knew it was coming, Draco felt himself shift back into his own body just as the body that was twined with his, connected with his, morphed into something shorter and broader and all together wonderful.
Neither of them opened their eyes, afraid to see what was in front of them and also relishing the secrecy and forbidden feeling of kissing someone you felt to know intimately and yet had no name for.
But soon, Draco was ready. "Let's open our eyes," he whispered hoarsely, almost grateful his voice was too husky to sound like his own.
When he opened his eyes, the revealed partner was not who he expected to be.
"Potter?" Draco whispered.
"Malfoy?" Potter deamnded.
Both their voices were filled with awe and shock, and after a moment's silence they delved back into the kiss. It felt more right than anything else Draco had ever done, and he knew without a doubt that it was Potter--Harry--he had been pining for all along.
"This is okay?" Harry asked him, once they were both spent and sprawled on top of each other in the closet. Draco felt himself smile like a fool, and he leaned in to kiss Harry chastely.
"As long as you promise this is more than a one night stand."
Harry leaned into his chest and sighed. "I have no issue with that."
Before he drifted off to sleep, the last thing that Draco thought was that he had never expected to enjoy polyjuice so much.
It gave him his second chance.